Of Humans and Predators
by Lady NeverAfterNon
Summary: The aftermath of Alien vs. Predator and the subsequent adventures of Scar and Lex involving dead possums, zombie vampires, oh yeah and alien invasion. Language warning, shenanigans warning, and contains a healthy dose of adventure.
1. In which this is a Prologue

**Author's Note:** _Still not happy. Hopefully this second round of housecleaning works._

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**Of Humans and Predators**

**By:** _Lady Neverafternon_

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_Prologue_

Alexa Woods never really wanted any of it.

The whole mess was doomed from the beginning. She knew it, and they knew it. They just didn't want to admit it. She'd been plucked from the top of the Khumbu Ice fall by Maxwell Stafford before being taken the icebreaker ship Piper Maru. It sort of reminded her of the movie Jurassic Park. Huge, awesome, and more than fantastic, but still had something dreadfully wrong with it, something that she just couldn't quite put her finger on.

She had then learned of a phenomenal discovery of a massive pyramid two thousand feet below the ice on Bouvetoya island. Undiscovered. This new information would take what people knew about the old world and blow it up and stomp on it.

And if that mind-boggling information wasn't enough, she was arrogantly informed that she'd be expected to take a group of misfits to an abandoned whaling station and back. With no training, and in Antarctica no less. No training was bad enough, but screwing up in Antarctica was slightly different than anywhere else. There was no one to come save you, and it had one of the harshest climates in the world. Being paid handsomely for it helped sooth her ruffled nerves, but still the fact remained: this was seriously a bad idea.

Playing mommy. That was definitely not in the job description. Not to mention that there were so many cliques formed within the team it wasn't even funny. The nerds verses the muscle. It was like high school all over again.

With the expected array of problems, and more that a few unexpected ones, the team set out.

Everything seemed to go wrong. Alexa involuntarily discovered Charles Weyland struggling for breath, clutching an inhaler. He'd tried to hid it from her, but that didn't work. He insisted on being included. He wouldn't be left behind. Now that she thought about it, there were so many signs that what they were doing was wrong. Her intuition had warned her time and again that this was not a good choice. But in the end Sebastian had convinced her. Convinced her that what they were doing was worth it, worth any risk. His excitement had fueled hers and had shown her the beauty of what they were doing, the beauty that she'd missed somewhere along the way. Sebastian was-

Oh God, dear God. Sebastian. Sebastian with the knock down smile and that gorgeous voice.

The depictions on the pyramid walls when they'd entered were violent and macabre. It was like walking into an ancient tomb. The hieroglyphs showed plainly that this had not been a place of peace that they were trespassing into. They made her skin crawl to look at them. They figured out the entire story later, she and Sebastian. It wasn't just mythology engraved into the walls, but a thousand, maybe even million year story recording a bloodbath that stretched through the ages. A record of what she now knew to be the galaxy's most feared titans clash preserved in stone. If it even was stone.

But there was no such thing, she remembered telling herself. It was all something out of a horror story. Made up mythology by the native shaman to tell their people in order to scare them into following their primeval gods. There was no such thing as monsters.

Oh how she was wrong.

One moment they were cataloging ancient relics, dry boring tasks that made her slump with fatigue and boredom, the next moment she'd been surrounded by the terrible screams from people being murdered around her. She'd watched Maxwell Stafford, Charles Weyland, and others from her team coldly hunted down and eliminated. Until it was only Sebastian and herself. Charles Weyland had died to give them time to escape. He'd died an brave, honorable death, and it made her eyes burn with unshed tears every time she remembered his sacrifice.

She and Sebastian had figured it all out while they were in the map room, or something of the sort. The records were all there anyway. Predators, according to the rough translations, had come to Earth to train their young to become worthy adults. The Predators would pit themselves against the Xenomorphs, vicious non sentient aliens that reproduced their numbers at the expense of everything else. Face huggers, chest busters. Everything about them was an abomination to nature.

She and Sebastian had watched the young hunter, dubbed Scar, mark himself with the acid blood of his kill. His face had been in shadow but Alexa had been sure he was hideous looking. After all, the alien xenomorphs had been freakishly ugly, why not him?

She and Sebastian had then come to a decision that they had had no other choice but to make. They would return the alien weapon to Scar, and hope that he was able to keep the Aliens from reaching the surface world. Better the enemy you knew, than the enemy you didn't. Though it was all really a hope that the two species of aliens would end up killing each other, and leave the human race out of their death match. If that could even be possible.

The door they'd thought would open, did not. Alexa remembered vividly the cold creeping terror that had taken hold of them as they moved cautiously through the pyramid, expecting attack from both species of alien at each turn.

And the aliens in turn did not disappoint. A xenomorph chased them down the long hall and out to a open space. A bridge that had spanned the abyss had long since deteriorated and fallen. Sebastian barely made the desperate jump. Alexa did not. He had leapt forward and barely caught her. She'd clung to the rock face and watched as an alien with a grid pattern burned into its hide dragged Sebastian away. The frightened expression in his face was imprinted in her brain forever. If he had not stopped for her, he would still be alive.

She had been alone then. All alone. Alone in place were even the environment was against her. She had never been more afraid in her entire life than in that moment. Everything she thought she knew, was wrong, no one knew where she was and she knew that she would die down in that hell hole forgotten and alone.

She came to a room at the end of a long wide hall. She had been terrified, jumping at every little shadow that moved and danced along the wall. It was a dead end. She had bent her head and closed her eyes briefly to steel herself, get herself together. But all her resolve had flown out the window when she'd realized that she wasn't alone.

Scar. Turning around she saw a Predator standing there. He was motionless, sizing her up. Then in a fluid motion he brought out a short metal tube which telescoped into a deadly spear. His intent was clear. Alexa had clenched her fists. She raised her hands, pleading with him to spare her, and then he turned, deeming her an unworthy kill. Suddenly in that moment Alexa did not want to be left alone, even if it was a burly six foot alien with an ugly mug and a mean temper.

"Wait! Please wait!"

And by some miracle, he had. Alexa still didn't know why he'd spared her life. He could have killed her and gotten his plasma gun just as easily.

She had slid the weapon across the floor to him. As he bent to retrieve it, a xenomorph had appeared behind him. She felt as though her hopes had been dashed,, that her one ally in this whole nightmare was done for, but his hunter's instinct had already seemed to know. The two unearthly monsters had clashed together, snarling, scratching, punching. In a burst of energy, Scar had thrown the xenomorph clear across the room. Good for the Predator, bad for her.

The xenomorph now had a new target. The human woman, defenseless against the wall, with no escape. New victim, and less work. It had pounced. She caught up Scar's spear and brought it around just as the alien came for her. It impaled itself with a horrible squelching noise on the end of the spear. The thing didn't seem to die. It kept screeching and tittering, trying desperately to kill her.

Finally it lay still. Alexa pushed it to the ground with an inaudible sigh of relief. The damn thing was dead, and there was a strong underlying sense of satisfaction along with the revulsion. She had looked up only to see three laser dots arranged in a triangle shape on her forehead. They had burned slightly.

She got the idea that the Predator was deciding whether or not she would be any trouble to kill. A sound behind him had interrupted him. Xenomorphs were pouring from every nook and cranny. But this had not seemed to perturb Scar. His plasma gun charged, lasers locked on target, and blasted away with cold precision. Aliens exploded in showers of green right and left.

Alexa could still recall with cold and horrifying memory the angry shriek that had raced throughout the pyramid. It was a scream of rage, and revenge. She had suddenly realized that she did _not _want to meet whatever it was that could make a noise like that.

Scar had turned and looked at her, then he had apparently made his decision and stalked off. Alexa could not believe that after all that he was leaving her. She had stepped quickly forward in a panic.

Well it certainly wasn't the brightest thing she'd ever done, but it did get his attention. Okay, maybe it had not been a bright idea to call him an ugly creature. If his species was able to design ships capable of interstellar travel, he'd certainly be able to figure out an insult when he heard it.

The Predator snarled and turned on her, clicking angrily. Alexa stepped backward nervously, not knowing what to expect. Well, she knew what she should expect. In the brief experience she had of his race, she expected him to gut her and hang her upside down like a roast in a warehouse. He had advanced upon her, looking at the dead xenomorph she'd killed and then back to her. He made his choice. Alexa didn't know it, but that decision was to change her whole outlook on life.

He'd taken the time to arm her from the dead alien's body, and they'd fought their way side by side out of the pyramid. The Predator had detonated a bomb that blew the whole place to dust.

In the silence left over from the seemingly unending nightmare, they stared at each other. All Lex could remember thinking was "why are his eyes green? They should be red, black, yellow, any monster color, but green. They're so damn pretty."

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He'd marked her as a warrior and a equal then. They'd stood there on the edge of the crater. Not quite knowing what to do. She knew he wasn't going to kill her, but they also didn't know what to do with each other. The battle was over and all they could do was stare. Alexa remembered wondering if he knew how to fist bump.

Then all hell broke loose. The Xenomorph Queen had erupted from the ice and snow like some sort of evil specter, doomed to be undead.

They'd battled her. What else could they have done? Alexa had remembered feeling elated and proud as she and the Predator had stood there in the snow, covered in their battle wounds and the lone survivors of an atrocity. Then the Queen had shattered the stillness and charged them, and Alexa had felt those warm and fuzzy feelings disappear down the proverbial black hole. The Queen had fought them to the brink of the cliff. Scar and Alexa had labored together to tie her chain to a giant steel water tank. Once they'd had her pinned she remembered looking at him, think that they just might make it. But just as she shouted to him her triumph, and found his elated and somewhat happy expression on his odd face looking back at her, that elation had turned to surprise. The Queen's barbed tail spiked Scar straight though the chest.

She had brought him up to her face, examining the dying Predator stuck on her tail. He'd roared at her then, in a last show of defiance. She had snarled and her inner mouth snapped forward to taste his blood. But she never got the chance. Alexa had snapped a bolt and now the heavy vat was falling over the cliff to the sea below. Alexa had watched with vicious jubilant pride written all over her features. She watched the Alien Queen plunge to her doom and clenched her fists. Ding dong, the Wicked Witch was dead.

A strangled noise had interrupted her thoughts. Scar. How could she have forgotten? She turned and knelt at the fallen Predator's side. She remembered her eyes burning. But it couldn't possibly be tears, that would be silly, crying for an alien monster lying dying on the snow. Scar was doomed. He was drowning on his own blood. He turned to her and Alexa put her hand in his. Her hands were tiny compared to his giant ones.

In his spasmodic death throws, he squeezed her hand so hard she was sure he broke something. His eyes never left her face, and she could not look away. His grip loosed as he died. Alexa pulled her hand free slowly from his slack hand and looked at the fallen warrior. She was alone. He'd left her there, alone in the snow. She looked around blearily. What the hell was she going to do now? No one knew where she was, and the Piper Maru wasn't expecting a call from Base Camp until the next day. And they wouldn't send someone looking until fourteen hours after that. She'd freeze to death before a single hour was up.

A crackling noise behind her had interrupted her reverie. A Predator had stood behind her, bigger than any of the ones she'd seen. More appeared behind him. They, along with the ship had de-cloaked behind her.

Alexa had stumbled back in astonishment. The Predator Elder had stared at her for a long moment before handing her a deadly looking spear. He'd thrust it at her in a brisk sort of way, clearly wondering if he should give a filthy little human female such a thing of honor. He'd obviously given it to her before he rethought it and took it back. She'd taken it, her fingers closed over the weapon and to her surprise she found it warm. There were symbols inscribed on it, the same bunch of symbols that Scar had born on his helmet and his armor. She wondered who this spear was originally meant for. She glanced at Scar's body, and the Predator Elder followed her gaze. He clicked at her, then at his people.

His kin had born Scar inside the ship and the Elder stared back at the human for another long moment. Then he turned and walked silently to the ship.

Alexa had watched it fold itself and take off, disappearing into the murky clouds. She'd stood there a long moment before making her way to one of the large drilling machines, still running, and making her way back to the Piper Maru.

She slipped into unconsciousness a little ways from the ship, succumbing to her wounds. But the workers on the ship spotted the lights of the machine and formed a rescue party, figuring rightly that a lone drilling machine making its way back did in fact bode ill for the expedition. They brought her back and had her airlifted to the nearest hospital in Chile, and then ICU in Brazil. She spent a month there, slipping in and out of her unconsciousness. When she came too, she discovered that she was still holding the Predator spear.

One of the doctors had smiled at her gently, saying that she would not let go of the dirty short metal tube. They did not now that it was a weapon. He informed her that they'd tried to cut it free of her hand but it had dented their diamond edged blades.

She then told them her astonishing and unbelievable tale. They listened in stunned silence. Then the doctors conferred with each other in silent tones. She's crazy. A lunatic. The blast turned her insane.

They sent her to her own country, and to her own state of Arizona, to an asylum for the mentally ill. She spent three years there. Clinging stubbornly to her story and biding her time, waiting for the chance to escape.

And one day, after three impossibly long years, it came.

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T_o be continued..._


	2. In which Crazy Happens

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

**Author's Note:** _Bugs are the nicknames for the Xenomorphs. The books use that term a lot, and it kinda stuck with me so I'm putting it in here._

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**Crazy House**

_II_

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Lex frowned, contemplating the masterpiece before her. The form itself was perfect, but the medium...the medium could use work. She poked around her table searching for something to stick into her work. Ah yes, lovely. She took the jello cup from her lunch and dumped it into her paint bucket. She frowned, contemplating the now apple scented paint ready for application. Better, but not completely perfect. She debated adding her peanut butter sandwich to the mix.

It would create lumpy most awesome. But then again, peanut butter was tasty and she was rather hungry. Decisions, decisions.

Voices drifted closer to her above the usual din of the asylum. Normally that wouldn't be news, but these voices were different. They were SANE. They talked about outside world things, such as politics, or taxes, or bills. There was not mention of voices or screaming or whatever. Here at Guilford's typical conversation topics usually had mention of at least Bigfoot, or demonic possession. She was almost interested until she caught the topic.

"...And the next patients are really something, coming around beautifully." Doctors, ugh. And more specifically Dr. John D. Richards, the big man himself.

She rolled up her sleeves and buried her hands into the bucket of thick gooey paint, wriggled her fingers around, and sighed happily. Ah, one of the few little perks of being here. An adult woman was able to stick her hands in a paint bucket all the way up to her forearms and splash around a bit and no one would think less of her.

Alexa Woods listened to the bland voices come closer to her, but she refused to open her eyes.

What did it matter? They would look and gawk at her, whatever she did would cause gasps of revelation and the people who came to look at her would stare at her like she was some sort of interesting circus animal. Which, she admitted she kind of was. Her hair had not been cared for properly in years, and it shot from her head in a violent brown corona. The vivid scar on her left cheek was both exotic and terrifying, not to mention it looked as though the acquiring of it had been most painful.

Which it had. To this very moment she could recall with perfect clarity the moment Scar had drawn it onto her cheek in acid. It sent chills down her spine, and not in a good way.

She shook herself from her reverie and looked up.

Her shrink Dr. Richards was as normal as they came. He liked his normal life, and he liked most of all working at the Guilford Women's Psychiatric Correctional Facility in Arizona. He liked being around all of the loonies because it only proved to assure him just how normal and comfortable his life was and how unfortunate the people around him were. In his own, sick little way, it gave him a sense of accomplishment to be helping the less fortunate and to show them the beautiful light of civilized society.

Whenever she was feeling down, Lex would imagine him stuck in Antarctica with the Predators and the Bugs. That always gave her a chuckle.

Dr. John D. Richards was, in short, a pompous chauvinist pig. Well, according to Alexa anyways. Unfortunately that wasn't the general consensus at the asylum. When they had their sessions, he would treat her as though she were a starved rapid wolf just coming to accept meat from her benefactor's hand. Lex hated his aloof patronizing manor. But it could not be helped. She was trapped until her chance for escape.

She'd already tried to run away twice, and each time she had been caught and they'd put her in a stronger, more containing cell. She'd always kept her predator spear down her shirt when she tried to flee. She had never given anyone the opportunity to see what it truly was. Dr. Richards only thought it a metal relic left over from that doomed dig in Antarctica. Basically an icky old security blanket for his most trying patient.

Alexa never let the spear out of her sight. It wasn't that it was comforting. It was her last grip on reality. The only solid proof in her mind that she was not crazy, that she did not imagine the atrocities in Antarctica. She clung to the spear as stubbornly as she clung to her memories. To attempt to forget Weyland, Sebastian, and the rest of the team would be an insult to their memory. They sacrificed themselves so that others might have the chance at life. Lex felt honored, as well as saddened to be lucky enough to receive their gift.

The sound of impatient throat clearing sounded above her. Alexa didn't even bother to look up. She knew that Richards would have his ugly pig face pressing in on her privacy and solitude along with all his associates from the Board of Psychology and whomever he was attempting to get grant money from. Alexa closed her eyes again and purposely ignored Richards and his little crew.

"Alexa, we've granted you use of the art room for good behavior, now let's show our guests a little courtesy shall we?"

Alexa pointedly ignored him and continued to energetically slap paint onto her canvas. They wanted crazy, they would get crazy. She could do crazy oh so well. The man would lose his patience and move on eventually, as he hated to ignored and shown disrespect.

Dr. Richards looked at the petite African American woman painting with firm, even strokes, and quite obviously ignoring him. He was irritated when his patient refused to acknowledge his presence, and upon closer inspection her painting was a depiction of him being eaten by dinosaurs. He'd brought the whole board to look at her and now she was ignoring him, and her painting was crap too. His promotion might be on the line. Oh have a little sense Alexa Woods!

Lex looked down at her painting, perplexed. She actually thought that it was pretty good, all things considering. She'd never really tried painting before but with the amount of time she spent on this thing it was turning out better that she thought it would. Maybe if she got out of here she would frame it. Something big and gold and horrendously gaudy. Lex frowned, then added more blood and guts. Dr. Richards watched her, feeling slightly queasy. The whole thing was surprisingly...visceral. He shuddered. Ugh.

The board members looked scandalized. They peered over at the woman covered in paint, her eyes squinted as she concentrated. Alexa gave one last energetic slap to her painting that sent bright red paint everywhere, and board members had to jump quickly out of the line of fire. Alexa swallowed a chuckle. It was surprising how nimble they all were when the moment called for it. Dr. Richards gave them all a embarrassed apologetic smile accompanied by a quick cough.

"Let's move on shall we. There are some interesting specimens in the next block, they..."

His voice faded into the general hubbub of the facility. Lex drifted back into her thoughts. The Predators. For once in her life she'd felt accepted and needed by Scar's side, or at least tolerated. They'd fought together, sacrificed together, and bled together. And Scar had died. It surprised her a bit that she could count that particular moment as one of the most horrible moments in her life. She had sat next to him as he choked and struggled. Determined to fight for his life until the end.

How stupid. She'd grabbed his heavy taloned hand thinking that she could somehow channel her strength and her will into him, wanting him desperately to cling to life. She didn't know what he had thought of the human girl holding his hand. He was probably much to weak to hack her head off like he'd most likely wanted. But then again, he had squeezed her hand. HARD. She massaged her fingers, half expecting them to be sprained and numb still.

Lex smiled slightly. The Predators, though they lived for the hunt and the thrill of battle, were the creatures most in tune with life that she had ever known. When she had been with Scar, her blood had sung, and the satisfaction of striking down a deadly enemy and triumphing over it intoxicated her. It had been more of a rush than any mountain she'd ever climbed.

More than anything, Alexa wanted to live that life again. She wanted to travel the stars with the Predators, with Scar. She wanted to have adventures, to hunt, and to live. She had tasted the ambrosia of victory and now she was addicted. She wanted to survive, she wanted to face the greatest obstacles and be victorious. She wanted to climb the highest mountain, scale the steepest cliff, and swim the deepest ocean.

She'd grown up reading Journey to the Center of the Earth, Treasure Island, and Sherlock Homes with her father. As a little girl, she'd grown up craving that adventure, wanting to travel the world and see all the sights possible. That was why she started climbing. The pure adrenaline rush of one holding one's own life in one's hands never failed to give her what she craved. Whether she lived or died was entire in her own hands. Her fate was her own.

But that dream was lost, however small it had been...the Predators were gone, and Scar was dead. Alexa wasn't even sure he'd seen her as a comrade or a least a partner. Though the accepting look in his eyes was unmistakable as he'd marked her one of their own. Or maybe...no, it couldn't have been. Predators most certainly did _not_ make friends. She doubted the word was even in their vocabulary. Sad thing was though, she didn't want to make the journey without him. Traveling the universe without Scar felt...weird. She didn't know what to make of it. She had no idea why if felt off, just that it did.

Alexa touched her cheek. The skin was warm, but the burn ridges stood out against her fingers. It was a vivid scar, and touching it brought the memories of the trials unbidden to her mind. Still, for all she knew he could have marked her as his prize beagle. Knowing the Predators and their complete disregard for human life, that was exactly what he did.

She would get free. They would not hold her for long. She had a Purpose, she knew what she wanted. She knew where she wanted to take her life. And these pathetic cells would not hold her for long. John D. Richards may be one thing, but a seasoned prison guard he and his flunkies were not. They had absolutely no experience when it came to survival. Lex had her entire life of surviving and outsmarting the other man to draw upon. Good thing she'd been behaving herself, or they'd at least have doubled the watch and kept the cameras on her cell.

She would bide her time and she would wait. Wait and watch. Sooner or later someone would make a mistake. There had to be more like her, there just had to be. Antarctica was not the only place the xenomorphs had been stashed, she was sure of it. She'd read articles in the hospital library, places all over the world that had documented the serpents' presence. Lex ground her teeth. The thought of more of those creatures on her planet, just waiting to get free, and here she was: locked in a cell, rotting. This was not the life for her.

At the very least her calling was clear. If she could not walk the vastness of space with Scar as comrades like she'd fantasized about, then she would spend the rest of her life doing her best to exterminate the malevolent aliens left on Earth. Not to mention that the Bugs could not have been the only fun toys the Predators had left on Earth. Seriously, they'd left an entire frigging pyramid for cryin' out loud. Who knew what other dangerous crap they'd left lying around? Sooner or later someone was bound to stumble across it, and Lex wasn't sure that it would turn out as nice and clean as it did this time. Humans might not be so lucky.

She pursed her lips at the thought.

_The serpents must not be allowed to spread_. Sebastian's deep Italian accented voice reverberated through her mind like a ghost. According to the computer access she had been allowed, there were also places mentioned where aliens had been spotted, accounts that had sounded real to Alexa for they seemed to deal with the creatures she had encountered on the island. Of course she'd also had to cover what she'd been doing with a healthy dose of Fringe episodes and Harry Potter fanfiction in order to hide from the nosy attention of her shrink, but still her mission was clear.

One thing was certain, she had to escape.

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	3. In which There are Comrades

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing. Not the 'Signs' aliens either._

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**In Which there are Comrades**

_III_

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Four months after the rude interruption by Dr. Richards and his associates, Alexa was once more jolted awake. This time it was the middle of the night. Alexa watched the two assistants enter the room. They weren't quiet, and they bumped around turning on lights and poking her insistently in order to make sure she was awake. Lex growled.

She was annoyed about having been woken, and she'd been having such a good dream too. It had been a tea party, at least that she could remember. She'd been wearing that stupid white puffy dress that her grandmother had forced her to wear to church every easter up until she was thirteen. There had been cake, and tea, and Scar in a monocle. Heh, Scar in a monocle. And he'd been a surprisingly good tea buddy too. Who knew Predators liked Darjeeling?

The two assistants in white jackets were untying Alexa from her bed. Every night they strapped her to her bed to prevent any more half baked attempts to escape. The first week she'd tried chewing the straps. That had not worked well. Not to mention they tasted like old tires someone had soaked in paint thinner. Ugh. Not the best taste to have in one's mouth for an entire week.

Alexa was confused at the intrusion. She had never been disturbed after 10:30. Ever. Even when she'd done something particularly spectacular to warrant punishment that would really stretch Richard's convictions. She frowned. Her 'spidey' senses also alerted her to the terse, frightened manner in which the two men handled her. She suddenly wished she could shoot webs and crawl along with wall. Spiderman would soooo not be caught here like a fat bug in a straight jacket. Her gaze slid back to the two assistants. Her intuition told her that they were not afraid of her, but of something they'd seen.

Interesting, Alexa was intrigued. She made an internal bet with herself: it was either unicorns, or they'd decided to believe her about the whole alien invasion thing.

They grasped her upper arms and forcefully guided her through the facility to a reinforced conference room. Dr. Richards was there, along with two men in rent-a-suits covered in more medals and ribbons than seemed possible, and that screamed 'Army Boys Used to Getting Their Way'. Alexa wondered what the United State's Military's most likely highest ranking officers possible would want from a loony who claimed to have seen aliens.

She was forcefully given a chair and a thick yellow manila folder was slid across the table at her. Alexa looked at it and began to slowly open the folder an riffle through its contents.

The 80's, A bunch of rambos she didn't recognize, their pitctures having the words '_deceased_' stamped across them. Looked to be some jungle, and if she was any guess, South America. The final man, man labeled only as 'Dutch', did not have a deceased struck across his photo in glaring red letters. His teeth were ground together in his heavy jaw, and his eyes pierced her straight through the photo. Lex shivered. There was a man who had been through some seriously tough shit, and had come out on top. She suddenly wondered what he'd had to do to get there. Whatever it was, it was forever ingrained into the dead stare of his gaze.

Most of the file was blacked out, but from what she could gather this man had led a team through a rain forest, had encountered an unknown entity that had started hunting them one by one, and only he had come out alive. There were pictures of a massive crater that had melted a good chunk of the rain forest. Lex grimaced. That MO looked familiar. When in doubt of loss of control, blow it up. At least that had been Scar's chosen course of action. It looked like his buddies liked that choice too.

The next section showed something more familiar: downtown Los Angeles, 1997. A police snapshot of a lieutenant Michael Harrigan stared back at her, his gaze wild eyed and slightly panicked. A series of shots of destroyed streets and buildings, people who had sworn they'd seen a monster. Harrigan's testimony was equally as blacked out as Dutch's. It seemed to be the same story though: an unknown monster hunting and creating havoc. Lex frowned.

There was something different about this case though. This Predator, for that was undoubtedly what the '_unknown hunters_' were, seemed to have no inkling to hide itself. It blundered around like an enraged tank, killing willy nilly and leaving no one untouched. Her brow furrowed. That was weird. Above all, at least in her brief experience, the Predators had been most concerned with stealth and hiding themselves from their victims until the final fatal moment and then destroying the evidence when discovery seemed imminent. How odd. Maybe something was wrong with that one.

She moved on. More files, some of them as early as the forties. Most of them logging the disappearance of most of the most dangerous men and women in the world. Vanishing, just like that. Like they'd never been there. Most disappeared on missions, right in front of the surprised eyes of their comrades. The most deadly Mobster the world had to offer, Vladimir Petrov, vanished in the middle of a hit. U.S. Black Ops soldiers out of Iraq, gone without a trace. Chinese assassins, from what it looked like anyway, gone in a flash of light in front of the frightened Ambassador they'd been about to take out. A Norwegian woman named Anya Valdal, listed as the leader of the worlds' most effective contract Black Ops mercenary team, disappeared in early 2001, only to reappear back in 2007, half starved and completely nuts. The list went on and on. Most of them gone forever, though it seemed that there were a few who had managed to make it back from wherever they'd disappeared to.

Lex's frown deepened. Now she had other things to watch out for. Note to self: appear cute and harmless to avoid body snatching.

More photos, this time of something completely different from the Predators or the Bugs. Glimpses of aliens that were long and thin, mere shadows caught by chance on different cameras. Recordings of a eerie clicking language, completely different from the chittering purr Lex was used to hearing from Scar.

Geez, how many aliens _were_ there?

She could hear her shrink's foot tapping behind her chair impatiently, and she grimaced. She refused to show any interest at all in any thing that had do to with Dr. Richards. It would only encourage him that he was getting a breakthrough and he was 'healing her'.

Alexa snorted at the thought. Right. The thought of Dr. Richards actually healing anything made her want to make the world's best villainous cackle and wouldn't they just think she was sane then? Actually that might be fun once she got back to her room. The night guard would just love her. They'd never be able to watch Glee now.

Dr. Richards and the army boys in their crisp uniforms were carefully watching her. Dr. Richards had an irritated expression on his face while the soldiers looked rather amused. Alexa refused to act interested even though she _was_ intrigued in spite of herself. The file also contained photos of the members of the past trip to Antarctica. They were all there, along with everything they'd ever done that was significant to the government and the military. The photos brought back the horrid memories that she'd tried to bury surging back to the surface.

'_The military's pretty thorough_,' Lex thought wryly.

She continued to flip through the pages feigning boredom until something caught her eye. A crumpled and dirty photo, at the very back of the file. Lex, with all of her considerable self-control, could not hold in the startled gasp. How well she knew that face that was staring sullenly back at her. She had only known him for a short time but already it seemed as though they'd been comrades forever.

It was the Predator she'd dubbed Scar.

Alexa froze, the Polaroid caught fast in between her clenched fingers. Her breathing was irregular and her mind seemed to shut down.

Dr. Richards looked at his patient and was mildly surprised by the reaction. She wasn't moving. She'd dropped the photo as though it had burned her and was now staring motionless at the stainless steel table, staring at something her mind produced. Some nightmare, he could only imagine. He detected a slight twitch to her left eyebrow, and her mouth had thinned to a grim slash across her face.

He frowned. This was the first sign she'd given of breaking for the entire three years he had been stuck with her sorry butt, perhaps actually encouraging her alien delusions was the best way to get her to crack.

On of the military suits leaned over. "That photo was taken by a ten year old girl with a stolen camera in the city park last Tuesday. She described when questioned two shadows. One that seemed to, quote, 'bend the world around it and another that was nature itself.' She then went on to describe a 'battle of the gods'. Of course, the direct translation from her dialect was a little iffy. She's a illegal immigrant that got away from officials and was found hiding in a hollow log. Scared shitless, pardon my French. Now, according to Richards here, you had a similar experience with something like this a while ago. Can you tell us about it?"

"Lex? Alexa?" Dr. Richards was slightly irritated that the woman was not moving. This incident could make or break his career.

Lex clenched the dirty photo in her white knuckled fist and the soldiers had to pry it from her grasp.

After a few more attempts to get her attention, Dr. Richards was forced to turn to the military agents and apologize for his patient's lack of response. He assured them politely from the room and motioned for one of his assistants to take Alexa Woods from the room. He sighed.

It was going to be a long, long night.

Alexa felt herself being strapped down onto her bed. The dark weighed on her, almost a tangible weight on her chest. It was time. It was finally the moment and opportunity that she had been waiting for. She had to get out, she had to get free.

Alexa lay there, frozen in the dark before wriggling and jostling the hunter spear from underneath her shirt. It landed on the bed beside her and her fingers scrambled for it. One light touch and the blades telescoped outward and cut through her bindings like a hot knife through butter.

It was time. She could feel the adrenaline singing in her veins. She was fairly sure that the figure that 'seemed to bend the world around it' was a Predator, if not Scar. The other alien she did not know. What she did know that it was most certainly not a xenomorph, those things didn't bother hiding. But whatever it was, it was obviously not Homo Sapiens friendly. Alexa felt a growing urge, an instinct to hunt down this danger and destroy it. Whatever this new threat was, in was most likely a new and unknown contender in the galactic ring.

Alexa looked furtively from her small, reinforced window in the door. Making sure there was no one about, she raised the spear. The slight whooshing as it straighted itself out further calmed her nerves and settled her into a methodical machine-like state. Alexa raised it and slammed it into the door. Though the door was reinforced, the pitiful Earth metal was no match for the advanced Predator alloy.

Alexa had bashed a sizable hole in the door before stepping cautiously into the hall. She glanced around before running barefoot down the hall, her feet making soft slapping noises against the cold linoleum. She was sure someone would have heard the racket she was making and would come to investigate.

Alexa made her way down the hall miraculously without any problem. She was almost free, and just in front of the elevator leading down the employee car garage, but it all went to hell in a hand basket when she accidentally bumped into the last person she would have expected: Dr. John D. Richards. Out of everyone, totally the last person she wanted to run into. Just her luck that the man would get a wild hair and decide to work late.

He gasped in surprise. Alexa did not even give him a chance to cry out. She whipped the edge of her spear around and pushed it up against his prominent Adam's apple. He gulped and watched her fearfully.

"One word. Only one word. Do not mess with me," Alexa hissed quietly. She could not afford a screw-up. Not at this point. Not to mention that she had a lot of pent up aggression from their 'sessions'. At least that's what her shrink called them. In reality they were more like torture link ups, her sitting tied to a comfortable chair in Richard's office while the man poked around in her brain and screwed with her mind.

Dr. Richards did not wish to argue with a psychotic madwoman who regularly said she had seen aliens. Her story may or may not be true notwithstanding. He merely hoped fervently that someone would come to rescue him. He prayed that he would come out of this alive and unscathed. He couldn't stand pain.

Alexa shoved him into the elevator and hurriedly punched the ground floor button. She knew that the staff the Guilford Correctional facility had monitoring devices in the bathrooms, lounges, stairwells, observance rooms, conference rooms, and elevators. She was gambling on the fact that the fat lazy man who was in charge of the nightshift security would be busy watching porn instead of the monitors. If he was not, she was screwed. He would place a call and a bunch of rent-a-cops armed with tasers and beat sticks would be waiting to pick her up the moment the elevator landed.

Alexa forced herself to wait quietly, suddenly glad for Dr. Richards's presence. He would be her trump card that she would play only if necessary. Still, she hoped she wouldn't have to. The man was an ass but she'd never killed anyone in cold blood. The elevator settled on its pulleys as they reached the ground floor. The doors slid open and she peered out. Breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of the empty garage, she walked out, yanking Richards after her. The dark garage was quiet and still.

Lex spun Dr. Richards around and began to shake him.

"You listen to me you old fart, I'm going to run for it. If they find me, or I get caught and I find that you ratted on me, I will hunt you down. You hear me? There will be nothing left when I get through with you." She shook him again for emphasis.

But the old man wasn't even looking at her. He was staring at a point over her shoulder with an absolutely terrified expression. Alexa whirled around, at the same time pulling her spear around with her in a defensive stance. For a moment, everything was still except for Dr. Richards' quiet whimpering.

Then, a form slid from the shadows like a nightmare. While the Predators were thick and stocky, this creature was lean and thin. The only resemblance was that they were both tall species. This creature was obviously an alien, but like none Alexa had ever seen. Then again, it wasn't like her alien encyclopedia was extensive. She frowned. It was a bit like some of the photos from the folder the military people had shown her, but she'd never really been able to get a good enough look to be sure.

It was tall and humanoid. Its pale green mottled skin seemed to stretch over its bones like a wet sheet over a drying rack. Its knees were bent backward slightly and as far as Lex could tell, they were double jointed. It stood lightly on the balls of its feet rocking back and forward slightly. She didn't think that aliens knew marshal arts, but it certainly carried itself like one.

Its facial features were flat and monkey-ish. The eyes were impossibly round and all black; no whites were visible. When it opened its mouth, a hissing clicking noise far different from the Predators issued form the open black hole that passed for its mouth. Alexa shuddered. That sound was certainly familiar. She recognized it from the recordings in the folder. It looked for sure now that she was indeed dealing with the same sort of alien. She did a double take. Its teeth were like rapier thin needles. And there were lots of them.

Lex crouched, waiting. There was no way she could escape, the alien was very pointedly barring the way out. One of them would have to die. Then the monster lunged. It was far quicker than she'd anticipated. Shit. It threw its weight on her and slammed her to the ground. She grunted at the impact, the air whooshing painfully from her lungs.

Lex lashed out in a clipped motion with her spear and it jerked back in slight surprise, hissing at a small wound on its shoulder that she'd created. She grinned. Not only had she dislodged it and succeeded in driving it back, but she'd gotten First Blood. She didn't know if the significance of it registered with her opponent, but it still made her feel better. She took advantage of the creature's surprise and rushed it. The monster danced out of her reach, hissing at her.

The two warriors circled each other, searching for an opening.

Alexa grimaced. Its blood was a sickly runny white color, and it cascaded far too easily down the creature's slimy and pebbly skin. She jumped forward, feinting right with her spear then at the last moment bringing her leg around in a swift roundhouse. The hard blow landed on the monster's stomach. It stumbled backward and clutched at it's midsection wheezing through its hideous mouth, then it snarled at her and made a snatch at her face. She tried to dodge.

Once again though, its far superior speed and agility got the best of her slow human reaction time. The monster's arm shot out and its long fingers closed around her throat. Alexa struggled but it was no use. It was like trying to open solid steel pinchers being held closed by Optimus Prime.

Her vision was just beginning to turn dark around the edges on account of her lungs not getting enough oxygen when the creature was ripped away from her. Alexa dropped to the the ground in a heap and massaged her sore neck. Looking up, she saw immediately what had saved her life.

The Predator known to her as Scar had torn the monster away and efficiently walloped off it's head with his wrist blades. The head bounced away from them, trailing more of that runny white blood and landed on top of Dr. Richard's shiny leather shoe. The man shrieked and squeaked something along the lines of "ick".

Once his job was done Scar advanced on her, making his familiar clicking purr. Lex hoped it was because he was pleased to see her, then realized that according to Murphy's Law that might not be the case. He might be happy to see her, but then again he'd also made that noise right before he was about to gut something too. She wondered how the hell he had survived. As far as she had been able to tell, he'd been dead meat back in Antarctica. The Alien Queen had run him straight through. She'd _watched_ him _die_.

He stopped in front of her and both warriors (comrades Lex hoped) stared at one another for a long, long moment. Scar's face was expressionless because of his mask but he held out his hand. Alexa smiled. The gesture was a surprisingly human one and she got it loud and clear. She slapped her tiny palm against his giant one and laughed. They were back in business.

The moment was broken by a shaky Dr. Richards. "I must be hallucinating. It's all a bad dream. I'm at home in my bed, nothing can hurt me."

Alexa laughed at the irony. If only, if only.

Then she and her new partner left the still steaming pile of alien corpse and the panicked Dr. Richards alone in the car port and ran off into the warm Arizona night. Lex had many questions, but she felt better knowing the Predator was running at her side, and that she was not alone in gigantic alien shit storm that was most likely soon approaching. Scar may not be on her side, exactly, but the Predator was literally like a giant alien tank. Hopefully other problems would hesitate a bit before inviting him to dance.

She grinned. Things were finally looking up.

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_To be continued..._


	4. In which there is garbage

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**Junk Yard**

_IV_

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Alexa stirred and awoke. The morning light filtered in through the dirty cracked window and onto her face. Groaning, she raised herself off her elbows and looked around. She was lying in a pile of newspapers and garbage bags in an abandoned trailer out on the edge of a small town in the Mojave desert. It was basically an unofficial garbage dump. People brought all their crap out to one place and then the local hillbillies shot it up.

But now that was illegal ever since someone's treasure hunting kid had accidentally been shot. At least the fierce looking sign stuck in the dirt in front of the entrance to the place said so. The fact that bullet holes riddled its aluminum surface didn't help the image any. So for now it seemed that the place was relatively abandoned.

Scar had chosen an excellent place for reconnaissance plans. A dilapidated crap heap that no one cared about, and enough dangerous junk to build enough weapons to power a small Iron Age army. Lex had gathered at least two boxes worth of shotgun shells that people had just dropped, not bothering to pick up their spares. It was amazing the stuff people left behind because they were lazy and didn't bother to look for it or even pick it back up. The Predator sure knew how to pick his hiding spots.

Speaking of Scar, Alexa looked about for the missing Predator. He was no where to be seen. Figures. Lex just hoped he was leaving the hillbilly neighbors alone. No telling what kind of trouble he could get into if he discovered the trailer parks that were filled with nothing but the hicks and guns. Alexa heaved herself to her feet and stumbled to the door of the trailer. Forcing it open she looked blearily around the dump, before going back to her makeshift bed and retrieving her retractable predator spear. She wrinkled her nose.

She'd slept in a lot of shady places in her day, but this took the cake.

She was halfway out the door and about to stuff it down the front of her shirt when she stopped. She was free of the Guilford Correctional Facility and Dr. John D. Richards's 'good graces', so why not wear it where it was supposed to be? Alexa stepped from the trailer and looked over the junk littered ground for something to secure her weapon to her person.

After a moment's search, she was able to form a crude sheath with some wire, and a scrap of leather which used to be a pocket, presumably from someone's old coat. She tied this all to her waist with an old belt that looked like something out of The Lord of the Rings. It wasn't very pretty but it served it's purpose. The spear now hung from the back of her belt within easy snatching range. It bumped against her bottom whenever she moved, and she tucked her shirt down over it.

Alexa's survival instinct began to kick in so as she searched for the errant predator, she also kept a sharp eye out for threats and prospective weapons amid the junk. After a time, Alexa came up with a hunting knife that was missing a handle. A while later she found a rubber duck that would act as a hand guard. She rammed the end of the knife through the duck's chest, then clutched the body. At least the squeaker was gone, thank goodness for small graces. She didn't know what she would do if she had to face the enemy aliens with a squeaking knife. They'd laugh at her before they'd kill her. She studied her new knife. It was crude and slightly creepy looking, but it would work.

After about an hour the hunting knife was all she could find. She had just decided to start out on the road by herself, figuring that if Scar wanted to come back and being the excellent hunter that he was he would have no trouble finding her, when the hairs at the back of her neck prickled at the aura of an unseen presence.

Lex twisted all around. She could see nothing and all was still. But still she could sense a malevolent presence. It wanted her, hated her, was hunting her. She had been around Predators long enough to know that it wasn't a Predator. This thing wasn't a born hunter. It was clumsy, allowed itself to be sensed. She hoped it would overestimate her.

She waited with bated breath for a moment, figured that if the big bad something wanted to attack her it would. In the meantime she would choose a place favorable to her if she were challenged. Alexa stood with her back to a wide open area of sharp aluminum shreds along with broken glass, and walls of sharp twisted metal garbage rose up on either side of her. This went on for a few yards so nothing would be sneaking up behind her from behind or her flanks. The only way to get to her was from the front. She wasn't going to get a better deal than that, so she waited.

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Then, after a few moments she detected movement over by the old trailer she'd been staying in. Lex stared. There was no shimmer, as with the Predators. But there was a falseness to that section of the trailer. Something was wrong. Not different, but just wrong. For a moment, nothing seemed to happen.

Then all hell broke loose.

Shapes detached themselves from the side of the trailer, and the hissing monsters she'd come to recognize as the new enemy aliens lurched towards her.

After a moments initial shock, Alexa grimaced. This seemed to happen frequently, she was _so_ freakin' tire of big ugly aliens trying to gank her. She snatched her spear from its sheath and extended it and got down into a fighter's crouch. There were three of them. The same sort of beastie that she'd fought in the car port at Guilford's. They swayed slightly on their feet before going for her.

_Come back for more punishment, boys?_ Alright if that was the way they wanted it, she'd play ball.

They came at her all at once. Later, when Lex recalled the battle, it came into her mind as a confused blur of teeth, arms, and sharp alien blades. The creatures were so fast that Alexa had only time to duck and stab. She rolled left so the alien monstrosities would not have an easy opening and clumsily swung her spear. She didn't really expect to get anything, but one of the creatures snarled in rage.

Lex jumped away and looked for a moment at her handy work. One of the creatures was sporting a bloody stump for an arm. White, runny blood was spraying everywhere as though she'd struck an artery or something. Excellent, she really hadn't thought she'd hit one. Hah, if they lost limbs that easy, than this dirty rumble would be over in a snap. Only thing was, she knew her frail human body could croak just as easy.

One of the monsters sprang for her. It knocked her spear away and it clattered out of her reach. Lex hesitated only a moment before snatching her knife and sinking into a boxer's stance. Her left hand with the knife ready to jab and her right up to protect her face.

The creature clicked at her and traces of a sneer formed at the edges of its cruel mouth. No kidding, she'd probably be sneering too if she were an invading alien. She knew she probably looked ridiculous. Death by rubber duck knife. Right. It lunged for her. Lex could have never fathomed the speed at which it came at her. With one swipe of its long, lean arm it knocked her six feet to the side. Alexa landed painfully on her arm and found that the glass field had ended up less than a foot away from her face, but then saw her spear within reach. She grabbed it up and held it in front of her, instantly glad for the six or so feet of cushion that it gave between her and her attackers.

The alien was so intent on reaching her that it did not notice the spear until it was too late. She swung and punched the end of the spear into the alien's chest, and the serrated tri blades gouged a hole the size of her head where the monster's heart should be. With a furious snarling clicking it pulled itself closer to her, but just as it's clutching fingers closed around her neck it shuddered and died. Alexa heaved the creature to the ground in disgust. She hesitated a moment before walloping off its head and sticking it onto part of a sign poll like a morbid trophy. She shook it at the remaining aliens and shrieked angrily. They turned and, to her complete surprise, fled.

Right onto Scar's waiting wrist blades.

'_Thats right, take that you creepy big fugly_' she thought as she looked at the oozing bodies.

Her Predator chittered at her. Scar stood there watching her, and just like in the temple, he looked impressed in spite of himself. The carcasses of the other two aliens lay in steaming piles at his feet, bleeding all over the place. The ground around the both of them looked like tapioca pudding.

Alexa carefully cleaned off her spear before sheathing it. Then she looked at Scar. He stared back at her inscrutably.

"Okay, I know you've probably acquired a better vocabulary since we last met. Suppose you tell me what's going on?"

Scar looked at her for a long moment, then his computer kicked in with a small whir and various voices began to be patched together for the story. She gave an internal sigh. Here he was an advanced alien capable of intergalactic space travel and he spoke to her with a hodge podge mix of his victims' voices. Seriously.

He stooped down and deftly ripped the alien's heads from their bodies, complete with their spines and stuffed them into a mesh sack hanging from his waist. It dripped sickly white trails down his muscled leg, and the sight of it made her slightly ill. He looked back at her and motioned impatiently.

"_We go... I...explain... along the way_." The voice was a mix of Weyland, and Dr. Richards, and a heavy Hispanic voice Lex didn't recognize. Probably someone he'd killed and strung up. She would bet cold hard cash that she'd run into the shined skull of the unfortunate man somewhere down the line if she and Scar continued to run together.

The Predator started off out into the desert to skirt the town. His form flickered a moment before mimicking the surrounding countryside. Alexa watched him a moment before following. Human and Predator raced off into the desert.

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_To be continued..._


	5. In which transportation is acquired

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**In Which Transportation is Acquired**

_V_

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As they ran, the Predator explained in choppy sentences pieced together from other people's words what was officially occurring on the backwater planet called Earth. Lex glanced at the alien striding unconcernedly in front of her. Scar was easily staying ahead of her; she was taking three steps for every one of his. She grimaced. Asking Scar to slow down for her would be like asking a mountain to please pick up and move a few places to the left.

She gritted her teeth and refused to clutch at the stitch in her side. Showing weakness to the Predator- she didn't want to think about what that would mean. For now it appeared as though Scar had come to fetch her, though Lex was uncertain what exactly their partnership consisted of. She had no idea how far their so called friendship would extend. For now, she needed the Predator in order to survive, and she didn't want to do anything that would jeopardize what they had going.

Scar punched at his wrist computer, and it spat back a story that Lex found herself not really surprised at. It all made sense, really. It appeared that the Yautja, what he called his warrior race, were at war with another race of aliens called the Soohang. Not surprising at all to find the Predators were feuding with another batch of aliens as advanced as their own. Honestly, between their habit of dropping in and hunting the hell out of whatever looked interesting and enslaving budding civilizations, Lex was surprised that this hadn't happened sooner. But then again, maybe it had. There was a lot she didn't know.

It was like Christopher Columbus all over again, but this time he was making a play at the new world along with the Russians instead of it just being the Spanish.

Both races had laid claim to the rich planet. All out war had been avoided up till now because it would have decimated the Yautja forces, and apparently the individual Yautja packs couldn't agree on much. Lex was intrigued. She immediately caught what wasn't said. The Predators were not sure that they could win. Or at least win well. She imagined they liked to smite first and leave their enemy a quivering pile of mush, and ask questions later. Interesting. Apparently both races of aliens had been arguing over it for centuries but had only started formally fighting at advancement on perceived Yautja territory from the Soohang.

Ugh, this was just politics with aliens and laser weapons. If her planet ever got out of this relatively unscathed, they could make a reality show out of it.

A year ago, the Soohang had apparently decided to follow through with their threat to take Earth. They'd landed with the intention of taking its resources and enslaving the people. But they hadn't counted on the humans retaliating immediately, as well as the Yautja moving against them. People could be nasty when their backs were up against a wall. Scar told Alexa reports of a human holy man who'd barricaded himself in his house to fight the hostile aliens. He'd survived. Another human in Asia had fought hand to hand with a Soohang and won. The Predators obviously respected and admired this. But then again Lex wasn't sure if humanity was being given kudos for their will to survive, or being sized up as more worthy game hens.

Alexa frowned. She had heard none of it. While she was in the loony bin, she'd heard practically nothing of the outside world except from the gossip from the orderlies and the few times she'd been allowed access to a computer. And even then the stories of alien invasions were not really an encouraged topic of conversation. So this was all very new to Lex. She was interested all the same though. It was hard not to when one's planet and very existence was apparently at stake.

Scar went on to tell her that large numbers of Yautja had come to Earth to hunt in the past few months. They did it to keep the Soohang in check; Yautja could not send official soldiers because that would be an act of all out war, and not to mention they couldn't get the packs to band together anyway and they'd loose a prime hunting ground. The Yautja apparently did not want a formal all out war with the Soohang because of economic problems. A war would decimate one of the favorite Yautja hunting grounds. Once aware that they were not alone in the Universe, humans would panic and the planet would in all likely hood be destroyed. Scar seemed to emphasize this point strongly. Alexa privately thought that he didn't want her thinking the Yautja were weak, or inclined to squabble.

Alexa chewed thoughtfully at her bottom lip. So she was caught in an inter-species spat. How bloody wonderful. She couldn't see that life with the Yautja had ever been pleasant for humans, but at least they'd never inflicted all out slavery. Recently anyway. Or had resorted to stripping their planet of valuable resources. The way she saw it, the human race would benefit less with the Soohang.

So she knew that throwing her lot in with Scar would at least have some benefits.

Lex saw the sense of avoiding all out war. It would quite literally destroy the Earth when the two powerful alien races collided. Both of whom would keep their teeth locked in each other until they both obliterated the other side. She did not know Scar's plan of attack, but she had a good idea. Guerrilla warfare. Since all out war was off the list, this was the next best thing. Stay ahead of the Soohang and keep them on their toes.

Yep, with a planet full of self-assured Soohang, along with a good many Yautja coming to 'Hunt', it worked perfectly. But this could continue for years. Alexa found the idea of fighting with Scar interesting, but it was not something she wanted to spend her whole life doing. Sooner or later it would end in tears. Or with her polished skull on some alien's wall.

Decisions, decisions.

Scar meanwhile, had halted. They were just outside a campground and Alexa could see families milling around, experiencing the outdoors. She frowned. She seriously doubted that the Predator had suddenly got a wild hair and wanted s'mores. He must have something more morbid planned. She glanced around warily. There were no warriors here, no threat. There was nothing that he could possibly hunt.

At least she hoped there was nothing to hunt. She couldn't see Scar going after defenseless families, but anything was possible. She didn't fancy having to try to kill the Predator that had saved her bacon numerous times. But if he attacked children...and mothers and fathers...she would do her best to try to end him.

Scar had cloaked with a soft electric crackling noise and Alexa could see his fuzzy outline slowly making for a family sitting around their fire roasting marshmallows.

None of them were armed, and there were six children were squealing and running around playing indians and cowboys with sticks. The Yautja did not hunt or attack children so for a moment Alexa did not see what Scar was up too. Then she saw him sneaking towards their dilapidated pickup truck. Lex understood at once like a kick in the face. She grabbed the Predator's thick arm just before he left the protection of the scrub brush.

She winced. Grabbing the hulking monster from behind was not the most genius plan she'd ever had, but then she considered herself lucky he didn't just skewer her on sight.

He turned, clicking furiously. But it was more of an irritated clicking, thankfully enough. By now he seemed to trust her and was plainly asking what her problem was. Alexa pointed at the family and shook her head she directed his attention to a smaller family a little farther away.

This family was obviously on the best plot of land. There was a child along with a mother and father. They weren't playing like the first family, but were squabbling in earnest. The mother could not seem to decide whose side to take, and she flitted back and forth from the little boy to the father like a nervous butterfly. They seemed to be arguing about nothing in particular but it was the truck that sat along side their Winnebago that caught Alexa's attention.

It was a huge Dodge Ram 3500, black with chrome finishing. Alexa grinned. It would be no trouble to switch the plates with something from the dump and it would lose its new look with whatever Scar hand planned for it. Besides, the truck was huge, had good tires, four wheel drive, nice big gas tank, it could off road quite easily and it could hold a lot of crap in the back. Perfect for the apocalypse.

Scar ducked his head in agreement, then he punched her chest lightly with his fist and said one word. "Drive."

Lex could have squealed with joy, but she did not. A family that rich with that many family problems should enjoy Mother Nature without their big beautiful truck. They could easily get a new one. And the publicity from an 'alien sighting' would more than compensate for the loss of the truck. So logic dictated that they were in fact loosing nothing at all. Lex could see that the father was the sort of person that loved being in center spot light and used it to his full advantage. So how she saw it, the family was really winning by losing their shiny truck.

She understood Scar's plan. He was the distraction and the key snatcher and she was the gung-ho driver of the getaway vehicle. He stood there for a moment and she could hear the soft _whirr_ of his helmet computer. Obviously scanning for the key. Having located it he moved like a ninja towards the family.

Lex was surprised at his talent. With the skill of a thief on the streets of New York, Scar stealthily and sneakily plucked the keys from the red-faced father's suit jacket pocket. The quiet jangling of the keys made them all stop. Scar chose that moment to uncloak and roar theatrically. He shook his wrist blades at them, and snarled.

Lex watched from her hiding place as people began to run around like chickens with their heads cut off. Back in the pyramid, she and Sebastian had watched the predator mark himself as a warrior and a man. In that horrible nightmare of a place, it was impossible to believe that those seven foot tall monsters were the Yautja version of a teenager.

But watching Scar chase around the hysterical family fairly clicking with glee in his own morbid way, she could believe it. The screaming of the unlucky family alerted other campers who began screaming as well. Everyone began to try to get away. Oh my god this was hilarious.

Lex sprang from her hiding spot and ran to the designated truck. She pushed the hysterical father out of the way, who was unchivalrously trying to save his own skin. She curled her lip in disgust. Pig. She glanced up to see Scar toss her the keys. She snatched them out of the air, opened the door, and stuck them in the ignition. The big engine roared to life, then settled to a quiet purr. Lex floored the gas and the truck shot off into the desert.

She had only been driving for a few minutes when a large something landed in the bed of the truck with a heavy thud. Alexa stopped the truck and looked around. Scar was sitting unceremoniously in the back of the truck looking furious that she left him behind.

'_Hmmm, must stop treating alien hunter like normal human buddy_,' Lex thought.

She laughed quietly to herself and opened the passenger door. All that running was good for him, and _boy_ was he fast. The Predator, with some difficulty, slide in next to her.

Alexa looked over at him. The Predator looked quite comfortable sitting there with a bloody package in his large hands. Alexa opened her mouth to ask him whether he'd decided to eat someone, then opted to give him the benefit of the doubt. While she wouldn't put it past him, she didn't think he'd do it around her. Not that she gave herself that much credit, intuition just said simply that he wouldn't.

Scar ripped the brown paper wrappings to reveal four glorious bloody steaks that must have cost quite a lot. He reached up and pulled the pressure hoses from his helmet and pulled it off. His golden green shark like eyes were fixed on that oozing steak. It was really not right at all that such an ugly and terrifying creature should have such pretty eyes.

Alexa looked away before he tore into it but as she pulled into the desert, she could not escape the ripping slurping sucking noises of a hungry carnivore.

'_Oh well_,' she thought, '_It could be worse, at least it's not a person.'_

_._

_._

_To be continued..._


	6. In which a creeper is dealt with

**Author's Note:** _Okay, I have not updated for a LONG time. Which is bad. Anyway, I've kind of had a standstill brain blah for this story. One of the reasons I haven't updated. I've sort of developed some ideas, but I might still change direction. Anyhoo, I've more of a plan that I did._

_._

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**In Which a Creeper is Dealt With**

_VI_

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Alexa and Scar ran out of gasagain five yards from a gas station just inside the Texas border. They had a bit of a dispute about whether it would be wise to go in for gas because of the simple fact that a human had an eight foot tall monster armed to the teeth accompanying her. Scar being the anti-gas retriever party. Lex, however, won out. Gas was necessary, and she wanted to keep her newly acquired truck.

Their plan ended up being Scar cloaking and following at a distance just in case, while Lex went up and asked the attendant inside the lonely little gas station to, "pretty please help her fill up her truck." Of course, neither Predator nor human girl gambled on the fact that the lonely hick inside the store would hit on her unabashedly.

Alexa leaned as far away from the man behind the counter as she could, without being conspicuous. The man was atrocious, not to mention at least fifteen years older than herself. His teeth were crooked, and an odd color of yellow. He had limp mousy brown hair caked with grease and he had wide protruding eyes, like a frog.

She kept from retching at the nasty body odor smell that radiated from his limp overalls, the only thing he was wearing. Ew.

"And, it just stopped. So, please help me. I just don't know what I'll do if you don't," Lex whined, while inwardly cringing at the tone of voice she was using.

She felt disgusted with herself at playing the idiot airhead, but it was the best way to get a good deal on whatever it is that she wanted. Still though, she found herself stuffing her morals farther and farther down the metaphorical toilet as the day went on. Ugh, she needed to be shot.

The man grinned, displaying a shiny gold tooth along with the decaying brown nubs of his teeth.

"Sure thing Missy, I'm real good at makin' things go. Real good. Maybe you want I could show you sometime," he leered. She wanted to barf.

Outwardly, Alexa gave her best ditsy air headed idiot girl smile, but inwardly she entertained the idea of asking Scar to throttle the lecherous scuzzbag. Or maybe she'd just do it herself. She'd give his dirty noggin thirty seconds, no, twenty five before it popped like an overripe watermelon.

The gas attendant grabbed a old red plastic gas can and slowly sauntered out to Lex's truck. She had no idea what exactly gave him the idea that he should even try. He obviously wasn't Vin Diesel. He obviously watched way too much porn. It was the only way she could explain away the reasons for his delusions.

Alexa could see Scar moving just out on the edge of her vision, still cloaked. She could feel the Predator's wariness at the human's presence, and she could almost see those long taloned fingers itching for his wickedly spinning shruiken. The only thing that actually saved the gas attendant was the fact that he would have made a terrible trophy. No amusement at all in chasing him.

Or maybe it wasn't the fat human at all, maybe it was elsewhere. Alexa fancied she could smell something wet and dead on the wind. Or maybe it was just her imagination. No, it probably wasn't. Her karma dictated that if something shitty might possibly be happening to her, than it was happening. At least that was her experience thus far. She seriously doubted that the Universe would quit knocking her down and kicking her in the ass in favor for giving her daises instead. And even if she did get flowers, her Predator would set them on fire.

The man lazily unscrewed the cap and then allowed the gas to slowly fill up the truck's tank. For a moment she cursed the fact that the truck's tank was so huge. All the more time she had to spend in this creep's presence. All the while Alexa was acutely aware of his eyes watching her. Not in a nice gentlemanly manner either. Those protruding pig eyes promised dirty, dirty things to her if their owner ever managed to slip her a roofie. Lex's fists clenched behind her back and a small muscle under her right eye twitched.

_'No killing the gas attendant_,' she thought, '_At least not until the tank is full_.'

It seemed forever for the tank to fill, but finally it did. The man screwed the lid back on the gas container, and slapped the gas lid closed. Then he turned to Lex.

"Baby, you wanna stay and see some action? I got a real nice place back-"

Lex interrupted him with a sickeningly sweet smile that promised painful death by dismemberment in his future if he continued with his chosen topic of conversation.

"Oh no, I got to go on," she said.

She turned away from him, but froze when she felt his hand feeling up her rear. Oh no he did _not_. She was going to butcher him, slowly. Then she was going to mix the leftovers with mud and puree them, and set the whole thing on fire. And then jumped on the remains. He was so dead.

Several things happened in the next thirty seconds. She could hear Scar de-cloak with a light hum, and his wrist blades shot out with a soft deadly _snick_. He obviously viewed this as an attack, as Alexa seriously doubted he was trying to protect her honor. Heh, she had a sudden vision of Scar in a doublet with a rapier and his monocle shouting 'on guard!' at the gas attendant who twirled his thick villainous black mustache and brandished his gold pimp stick. To the winner goes the spoils.

She thrust her left arm out to stop the charging Predator, while drawing back with her right.

"I take care of my own problems," Alexa said, driving her clenched fist into the man's nose.

The sleazy gas attendant fell backward onto his butt squealing like a stuck pig. Blood dripped steadily from his nose, coating his upper lip and flowing into his mouth. He lay there, limply on the ground, whimpering and tenderly feeling his nose. Which was most likely broken.

Alexa massaged her stinging knuckles, and refrained from holding the arm she'd used to block the charging Predator. Stopping Scar was like trying to stop a rampaging brick wall. Without looking at the pathetic creature writhing on the ground, she turned to go to the truck. Scar surprised her by grabbing her shoulder and turning her around sharply. Alexa was tempted to read the Predator the riot act, but she resisted. He'd probably pull her spine out and turn it into a pretty necklace.

Scar was standing completely still, facing ahead of them. His head moved slightly side to side, scanning the open desert. Alexa could hear a whirr coming from his helmet as scanned.

Then Scar released her shoulder and all was silent save for the wind blowing across the desert and the gas attendant whimpering pathetically on the ground. The Predator turned and stalked towards the truck, dreadlocks swinging madly. Lex had the oddest urge to pull on them. She squashed that urging by remembering that her companion was a galactic hunter who got his jollies off by hunting things and wearing their body parts as decorations. She had no desire to be a hat, or whatever the Predator would turn her into.

Alexa shook her head and followed. Scar wasn't about to tell her what he saw unless it was absolutely necessary.

Since Scar didn't give much of a plan as to where they were going, Alexa decided to haul him off back to her apartment in Texas. The Predator would be less likely to be noticed where she could keep an eye on him, rather than him gallivanting off around Arizona where someone was likely to see him.

Alexa strode back to her truck and plopped into the seat. She was suddenly very, very glad she'd stolen extra plates back at the junk yard, as the gas attendant had finally heaved himself to his feet and stumbled into the station to presumably call the police. She was terrified of spending the rest of her life locked in some government lab. It was pure luck that she had been able to get away last time, especially with the military knowing that she knew something about the invading aliens. She was surprised they'd even left her in the first place. What with the fate of the planet potentially at stake. Well, if they got their hands on her, she wouldn't get away again.

She was good, but not that good. She knew that she didn't have a hope or a prayer of breaking out of a top notch military lab once they got a hold of her.

Alexa did not wait for the Predator, who gone back to methodically scanning the bleak desert landscape, but gunned the engine and sent the black Dodge hurtling off into the desert like a eager thoroughbred sprung from the gate.

A huge jolt rattled the truck, and Alexa glanced back. Scar was sitting in the bed of the truck, and looked frothing mad. Alexa grinned, she was going to pay for this, she just knew it. There was no way that the Predator would just let it go. And for the second time in a week, though it was rather cliche, they rode off into the sunset. Though perhaps she should quit leaving him like that, she amended. Whatever they had, he was still sure to add her head to his collection if she kept screwing him over like that.

Yep, definitely in her best interest to not piss off the Yautja hunter more than she had to, no matter how much he seemed to like her.

.

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To be continued...


	7. In which Lex plays Lone Ranger

**Author's Note:** _Here we go. I tidied it up a bit but I still need to clean house. (^_^)_

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**In Which Lex Plays Lone Ranger**

_VII_.

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Alexa rested her hand against her head. She was seriously starting to regret hauling Scar back to her apartment. It was clear to her that this arrangement should be short term, and perhaps not even exist at all. Scar was clearly not cut out for suburban life.

The thought of the Predator at all interacting with her neighbors, terrorizing the family barbecues, and hunting 4B's four over eager Dobermans, Rocko and Starch made her shudder. Though when the Paris Hilton clones who lived in the apartment above her had their parties at four AM she found herself almost rethinking. She could just picture the enthusiastic Predator blowing a hold in the ceiling with his shoulder cannon and hunting the heavily muscled boyfriends of Blond 1 and Blond 2, who would probably attempt to defend themselves. Unfortunately a lifetime of hair care products and defining muscles in a gym would never stand against a seasoned monster who'd spent his life hunting the most horrifying creatures nature had to offer. The thought of it was almost sad.

As she watched the Predator shred her couch to make a nest in her flooded Jacuzzi bathtub, she again questioned her sanity and the apparently not so genius plan at allowing this creature back into her life.

As if sensing her negative thoughts, the Predator in questioned looked up at her from where he lay partially buried in soggy couch bits. He trilled at her, obviously quite pleased at himself. She sighed. Obviously reptilian in nature, it never occurred to her to think about just how exactly the Predators' species really functioned. Well, it was not surprising actually. The majority of her dealings of them involved her fighting for her life. It didn't really give one time to contemplate the workings of their attackers.

Hah, she could just see it now: Hello giant monster, I don't understand why you've got the pokie things coming out of your face, what are they, a failed attempt at a mustache? And your hair, seriously? And where the hell is your nose? How do you smell things, no, wait, I don't want to know on that one. Predator Response: Rip out biologist's skull and wear his skin as a dress.

She stared at the Predator, who was slowly turning her bathroom into what must be the closest equivalent of life on wherever the hell it was he was from. She coughed, and waved a hand about her face. There was enough steam in the air that the super would probably be knocking on her door in the next few minutes demanding to know what the hell she was up to. She beat a retreat, finally unable to stand the extreme humid atmosphere Scar was inducing in her bathroom.

Alexa shook her head in defeat. "Whatever, just stay out of the kitchen."

She left, still shaking her head. Let the little miniature rain forest swamp stay contained in the bathroom. Her kitchen was her pride and joy. No telling what Scar would do with it once the alien home decorator wannabe caught his taloned paws on it. On to the next problem: what to feed him. Meat was obvious. The acquiring of it was the actual question. The Predator obviously preferred to hunt his food, and as much as Alexa disliked her neighbors, setting a overeager Yautja hunter them wasn't something Lex would wish on anyone.

She rummaged through her ice box and was happy to find a couple of roasts that would hold him at bay for a few days. She glanced over her shoulder. Steam belched from under her bathroom door, and something told her that the Predator would be there for a while. She should have predicted that. He probably was like most earth reptiles, being that he was most likely ectothermic and had to rely on outside sources in order to keep his body warm. Sighing, she grabbed a beer from the fridge and meandered over to her living room. She was relieved that she had a few moments to herself, but also...oddly enough she missed Scar's presence.

Then again, maybe not. The dude had killed her couch.

She cursed when she forgot again that the couch had been commandeered. Dammit, already this was becoming more and more a terrible plan that she regretted. Alexa dragged her giant purple beanbag from the closet, left over from her college days, and plunked it in front of her television. She dropped into it like a sack of lead potatoes and leaned her head back tiredly. She sighed. Finally. Peace and quiet where nothing was trying to impregnate her, rip her face off, or eat her.

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.

She grabbed the changer. TV, she hadn't watched TV in a while. Normal people did that, and dammit she was normal. She stabbed at the power button eagerly, maybe The Mentalist was on! Patrick Jane with his blue eyes, blond hair, and saucy grin, Lex admitted freely to herself that she was indeed a sucker.

_Click_.

The first thing on was a news cast. Pictures, an announcer, no, a reporter. A few screams, the camera pointed at the dark sky. It was downtown. Flashes of light shot through the dark clouds. Lighting? No. Shit. Her brain finally caught on and registered the thousands of spinning smoke and lightning tornadoes, spitting fire and lighting onto the city below. It was hell on earth, and it was happening right outside her front door.

Alexa lurched forward, franticly stabbing at the volume control on her remote. The reporter's face was drawn, frightened. He held the microphone mashed against his mouth, and his knuckles were white as his meaty hands gripped it.

_"-just this afternoon...down...sky...stay calm!"_

The reporter's news cast was punctuated by short bursts of static, and the camera seemed to have trouble focusing. The view panned back over the frightened man's head to reveal a giant spinning pearly gray oblong disk. Lighting flashed all along its edges, and it seemed to be fueling the violent storm. Lex frowned. She didn't know what the hell it was, but she knew for sure that it didn't belong to the Predators. It must be the Soohang. She clenched her fists.

The camera rocked violently as debris crashed through the air.

"Scar!" Alexa cried, "Scar!"

The moment the first syllable was out of her mouth, the Predator was at her side. The only thing he had on was the little scrap of dirty leather that kept him decent but he had flung on his weapons in record time. His shoulder cannon was mounted and tracking. The tri-laser dots flicked wildly about the room, and Alexa realized suddenly that he was searching for an enemy.

"No," she murmured, grabbing at his thick arm, "No look."

The targeting laser focused on her television and for one horrible moment she though he would blow it up, but after a bit the cannon switched off and the angry red glow around the rim cooled. Scar reached up and fiddled with his helmet. Alexa heard it whirring and clicking furiously and she wished she knew what he was up to, at least what he was seeing. He was probably seeing an entire array of things, from the news cast to the workings of her television, hell, he'd probably hacked her WI-FI and downloaded the news of whatever was going on and had it analyzed before she could blink.

For a moment, they stood together watching. The reporter was still shrieking frantically into the camera as the sky boiled above him.

Then, as if in slow motion for she could see every horrible detail coming along perfectly, Lex and Scar watched a stop sign snap off behind the reporter. The force of the winds sent it shooting towards the poor man like a rocket, and it punched through his chest like a golf ball through tissue paper.

The camera was splattered with blood. Then, the sign pole continued on through the unfortunate reporter and skewered the camera. The TV screen went to static.

Lex sat stunned. She didn't know what to think. Her whole world was crashing down around her ears. It was all happening sooner than she had thought. She had foolishly believed that she'd have a small break before the world ended. She had known it was coming, sure, but damn they moved fast. The Universe never really let her fall properly it seemed like. Just when she'd taken a bad knock, something trotted along and gave her a kick in the rear to go with it.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and counted to ten. What the hell was she going to do now?

Scar on the other hand strode forward towards her flat screen, and he wrenched it from the wall with one sharp tug. That sure shocked her out of her slump. The desecration of a fifteen inch plasma TV tended to do that. Alexa jumped to her feet, staring at the whole in the wall where the TV that had cost her an arm and a leg and her soul at Costco had previously sat.

She opened her mouth to give the Yautja a piece of her mind, but then she stopped. Why was she going to argue with an alien badass who would probably be more inclined to rip her face off and wear it as a hat than to get into it with her?

Scar dragged her television to the kitchen table, ripped the back off, and exposed the innards. He pulled a small container that Alexa had never noticed before from his armor and exposed frighteningly complex looking electronic equipment that she had absolutely not the faintest idea about. The Predator began to mess with her TV, and within moments it no longer looked as though it had ever been a television. He was probably turning it into a killer TV of mass destruction for all she knew.

Lex stared at him a moment, then shook her head. "What are we going to do?"

The Predator looked up at her and chattered at her. Right. Like she could understand his click language. He punched a few buttons on his wrist computer, his helmet whirred, and spat out something along the lines of: _Betrayal, dishonorable worm suckers, and death to the unholy mother ship._

Lex sighed. Figures. Lex knew in her heart of hearts that the Predator was only defending her planet because he saw it as his prime hunting ground. A sort of 'Me First' situation. The Yautja had the planet first, and suddenly these new players wanted a bite at the same apple. Sure, she'd managed to kill a few Bugs, and a few Creepers, but she couldn't shake that nagging feeling that Scar saw her as a dog that he was content to let follow him around. Suddenly she was struck with such a deep feeling of loneliness and despair that she hadn't felt since the pyramid.

Her planet was screwed. And even if it wasn't, it would be so worked over between the two alien races that it would probably be unlivable. Humanity had no chance at all, she didn't see any way out of this.

Back, in Guilford's, all she'd thought about was escape and glory. The four walls of her prison was her earth to her. Foolishly, she'd wanted to break from it. Willing to do anything, to pray to any god listening to get her out of that hole. But now, now that she was home, and she actually viewed the oncoming invasion that was surely the Soohang coming to collect on what they viewed as their due, the veil was lifted. She clenched her teeth together and balled up her fist. She was an idiot.

She realized that she was truly on her own. There was no one to help her, no one to come save her, no one to take her hand and tell her it would be okay. She felt burning at the corners of her eyes, and realized with horror that she was near tears.

She looked at the Predator fiddling with the ruin that was her television, giving no hint that he even knew she was there. He was either ignoring her, or oblivious. Probably both.

She watched him a moment, then got up quietly. Scar did not look up, but continued to tinker with the television. It now resembled a bad cross between a pig and a miniature terminator. It tottered around the table emitting sparks and banging into the fruit bowl. She curled her upper lip. Oh well, it wasn't as though she would be able to use it for much longer anyway, seeing as the world was going to hell in a hand basket.

She took another deep breath. Well, if the world was ending standing around wasn't going to help her much.

Lex pulled a 12 gauge shotgun from the hallway closet, a couple of boxes of shells, a waterproof blanket, and some add-water camping food and stuffed them all into a backpack. She made sure that her climbing equipment was stashed carefully into her pack and snatched a first aid from underneath her bed. Lex frowned at her open pack. What else? She grabbed all the cash in her apartment, which was quite a bit since Weyland had paid her in crisp one hundred dollar bills in advance. On a second thought she wrapped them in brown paper lunch sacks before stuffing them into the pack. It wouldn't do for some apocalypse crazy to see her gold mine and decide to do her.

She ran a hand down her lower back and butt to make sure her Yautja spear was still hanging underneath her clothes.

Lex tossed the stuffed to the brim pack on the bed, then knelt and tore through her closet. What to wear? Something that would encourage the random panicked citizen to not give her a second glance, something unobtrusive. She slid on a black hoodie, some dirty grey cargo capris, and her favorite sneakers. She went to the bathroom and stared in the mirror. Her hair was an untamed wild mess, and it floated about her head like a frizzy brown halo. It would also get her into trouble. Having long grab-able hair in a panic stricken war zone was not the most genius plan in the books.

She knew she should probably cut it off, as it would only slow her down the way it was. She couldn't bring herself to do it. Sighing, she bound it into thick braids flat against her skull. The remainder she wound around and around her head, pinning it firmly in place. She secured the entire masterpiece with her fuzzy black ski cap and tugged it down over her ears. The woman looking back at her in the mirror had a terrified brown eyes in a thin scarred face. Lex touched her cheek, it didn't feel like her face.

She grimaced. She was as ready as she was ever going to get.

Lex took a deep breath, walked calmly past the Predator in her kitchen and walked straight out her front door.

.

.

She closed it softly and rested her head against the door. One minute, two...ten minutes. The Predator showed no sign that he'd even noticed her absence.

She exhaled. If this was freedom she wasn't sure she liked it. But it was kind of nice not to be looking over one's shoulder all the time for the monster in the dark. She took the stairs down, two at a time.

The street out side was pure unadulterated mayhem. People ran, screamed. There was blood everywhere. Cars were crashed and burning. Glass and garbage littered the street. Stores were looted. It was like a zombie movie without the zombies. Lex watched a man shoot a woman who was clinging to him, begging and pleading for his help. He shook the woman's body off of him and ran.

Her brown eyes narrowed as she watched him run. Coward. She followed him. On top of the SIG Sauer he'd used to murder the panicked woman, he had a Billy club and military issued body armor. Besides, any rat bastard that murdered a frightened girl in cold blood had it coming. Someone would gank him sooner or later, and she needed the goods.

He disappeared down an alley, broke the back window to a store, and went in. She heard the SIG Sauer speak and knew he had probably just shot the owner. Asshole. She was feeling less and less guilty by what she was about to do by the minute.

Lex followed him in.

When she came out she had blood on her hands and some new toys. The body armor was fricken heavy. Thirty pounds at least, if she was to guess, but she knew she would grow accustomed to the weight. Besides, it would be worth it. She had a better chance of surviving the chaos in the streets now that she had armor that would give her a better chance against stray bullets. People were shooting in a panic, and the gentlemen that lay dead on the floor with the mark of her spear through his chest would not be the last.

It was Russian Roulette in the worst possible way.

She pulled her hoodie over the armor; no use letting some other punk see it and do her like she'd done the man lying on his back in the dirty back room of the store. She stood in the ally way watching the flood of panicked people, talking herself into joining the frantic stampede. Staying in the besieged city was certain death, she needed to get out. From there, she would work out a plan.

She pulled her hood up over her face and moved into the hell of the street.

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_To be continued...(eventually)_


	8. In which there is escaping

**Author's Note:** _I saw Predators last weekend, and it was AMAZING. Think it's my second favorite after AVP. I loved it. Mmmmm...awesomeness._

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**In Which there is Escaping**

_VIII_

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It took her longer than she thought it would to escape the hell of the city. The farther from the turmoil of the center that she went, it seemed that the surging throngs of people increased. Not surprising actually. Since the real alien invasion chaos was taking place towards the center of the city, and it did not seem as though they were being pursued, it really should have occurred to her that this is where the true hell would be. The weight of the crowed was almost suffocating.

Lex fought not to panic. It seemed that there was always someone taller than she surrounding her and threatening to drag her down. Soon, the press of the crowd was almost too much to bear. Lex gritted her teeth and stuck with it. It she gave up now, the crushing power of the mass of people would kill her.

Already she could feel soft lumps squishing unpleasantly beneath her feet, and knew with an ugly certainty that they were the bodies of the unlucky who had fallen.

She snarled suddenly as someone jumped on her back, panicking, and clutched her around the neck in a chokehold. Whoever it was was screaming bloody murder in her ear. Great. The metaphorical candle on her day. Alexa gagged, then thrust her forearm up through the crazed clutches' grasp. Somewhere in the back of her mind it registered that the arms holding her throat were really, really thin. Almost childlike. Shit. It was only a kid.

There was no way her conscious would let her get rid of a kid.

The confusing haze of panic and rage fogging her judgment rolled away. Lex squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, then opened them. Somehow she did not feel like knocking free a panicked child who didn't know any better. And she was so painfully aware of the crushed bodies squishing like old sponges beneath her feet.

Alexa jammed her forearm up through the kid's hold and was not at all surprised to feel those scrawny arms tighten in panicked retaliation. She held the kid's forearm away from her throat with her own, and then she closed her other fist over the child's hands, keeping the tightly clutching arms quite firmly where they were.

Lex took a deep breath, then let the crowed carry her forward. It was harder now, with the extra weight on her back, but it was worth it. The small body on her shoulders seemed to slump, and the iron grasp on her throat loosened. Thin stick like legs curled around her waist and the tiny ankles locked together. Alexa grinned. She was glad they understood each other. Don't strangle me and I won't knock you like dead weight. The message was clear.

She felt a small face press into the crook of her neck and the child on her shoulders began to shake quietly. Lex felt something wet trickle down her neck and into her shirt. Tears. The kid was crying. She gritted her teeth. Though with her karma it could just as easily be snot. Yep, it was probably snot.

.

.

There was a harsh earsplitting scream of metal.

Lex looked up, for the first time up over the mass of the crowed, and saw the bridge. People stemmed into the tight bottle neck like mud through a milk jug. She could see bodies on either side being shoved off, falling off of the bridge flailing like rag dolls only to smack into the cold water seconds later.

There was blood everywhere.

The streets were choked with it, the slats of the bridge were slick with it, and the water ran red with it. Alexa gagged. The stench of open bodies in the hot sun was over powering. She braced herself against the wild push of the crowd and thought quickly. Crossing the bridge almost certainly meant death, there was no doubt about it. It was too treacherous of ground, too small a space to have any hope of navigating safely, and too far a distance to fall if she made a mistake.

Her eyes flicked from side to side, looking for a way out. Soon, it wouldn't even matter. The crowd was carrying her ever closer to the death trap that was the bridge. She took a quick deep breath, then lunged for the small gap at the edge of the bridge. The child on her back gripped her tighter as Lex let go of it in order to grab the metal pilings of the bridge supports. She gritted her teeth when the kid's little ninja grip became almost strangling. Lex slid under the bridge and found herself dangling from the metal supports that spanned the underside of the bridge.

"Ugh," she muttered, "not the brightest thing I've ever done."

She could feel her hands slipping on the wet metal, and knew that if she didn't pull her ass up within the next twenty seconds she'd have an up close and personal hello with the river thirty feet below. She gasped at the burn in her arms and shoulders, but began to pull herself up slowly but surely. For the first time she seriously regretted wearing the bulletproof vest, but then again, how was she to know she'd be playing Assassin's Creed wannabe underneath a monster bridge during a world crises.

Halfway through the climb the kid begain screaming bloody murder. In her ear. Lex could actually hear her teeth grinding in irritation. When she actually made it on top of the damn bar she'd deal with the kid, because honestly, bellowing in her ear every single time something scary happened was not a practical way to solve problems.

_'But for now_,' she mentally chided herself, ' _you need to actually make it on top of the bar. Then we can play mommy.'_

Panting, she drug herself on top of the bar and lay there like a limp sack of old pudding, unable to will her tired body to move. The child was still shrieking unintelligible nonsense in her ear, shaking her shoulder. Lex grunted, but before she could manage to haul herself up, something hit her and the kid like a freight train, knocking them off of the bar. Alexa barely managed to grab the bar again, her fingers scrabbling frantically at the slick surface.

She looked up and recoiled. A woman's crazed face was inches from her own, snarling and biting. Lex stared. The woman could barely be classified as human anymore. She'd scratched great gouges out of her cheeks, her eyelids were gone, and what was left of her hair hung in thin dirty blond strands off of the back of her head.

Lex let go and swung from one rapidly weakening hand searching for the gun in the back of her pants, and instantly regretted it. She slapped her free hand back on the the bar. She barely kept her grip as it was.

"Gun," she shrieked, praying the child would understand, "gimme the gun."

After a long agonizing moment, though the kid was still yelling, she felt little fingers scrabbling at the back of her shirt. Her heart almost exploded out of her chest when the crazy lady got in a good swipe and clawed Lex's cheek, causing the kid to nearly drop the pistol. Lex snatched the SIG-Saur, pressed the business end up under the woman's jaw and pulled the trigger. The back of her head exploded with an audible _wumph _like an over ripe water melon. A vile smell filled the air, worse than anything Lex could have possibly imagined. It burned her nose and made her eyes water. She retched, glad that she had nothing to come up. The woman's body fell across her, weighing her down and her sweaty hands began to slip against the bar.

Lex was loathe to drop one of her only weapons, but she was barely holding on as it was. Her grip slid. The child scrambled off of her shoulders and onto the back of the rapidly stiffening body, kicking the dead woman's corpse off of Lex. Then the child gripped Lex's jacket at the shoulders, trying desperately to pull her up. For the first time Lex looked into the kid's face. A little girl, maybe seven or eight stared back at her, eyes too large in a too thin face. Limp black hair hung in dirty uneven clumps over almond shaped dark eyes.

Lex didn't have time to study her would-be rescuer. She slipped, cried out- that cold dark water was an awfully far and painful way to go. She was falling, for a brief terrifying moment.

And then something grasped her shoulder, painfully, and hauled her up. The air in front of Lex shimmered slightly, and she could just barely hear the child sniffling over the ringing in her own ears. Scar de-cloaked and roared at her. Lex winced, her ears ringing with the sound of his rage and frustration.

For a long moment they stared at each other, then the Predator dropped her unceremoniously onto the bar where Lex promptly almost fell off again. The little girl grabbed at her, flopping over her awkwardly in a rather ridiculous attempt to keep her on the right side of the world. Lex patted the little girl's head, grateful that the kid had stuck with her and didn't run and leave her to die when the psycho broad had attacked them.

Scar clicked at her and poked her in the back of the head, before growling and moving off down the catwalk. She suddenly had a nasty feeling that Scar had been shadowing her since she left her apartment. Dammit and here she thought she'd been doing alright on her own.

"Thanks," she muttered awkwardly at his broad back.

She looked over at the Predator who had squatted and begun poking awkwardly at the dead corpse with his wrist blades. It was amazing really that the body had stayed on the bar at all. Lex watched the Predator poke and slice at the body with a sort of morbid curiosity. The Predator's method, while horrific and disgusting, was clearly a professional means to an end. When her brain presented her with the thought of 'j_ust how many times has he done this?',_ she squashed it quickly. She was not going there.

.

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Scar sliced at the back of the dead woman's head and the bits of her exploded brain slid out. The little girl gasped. Lex covered the girl's eyes and stared. She didn't know who the girl was, but she was only a child and she did _not_ need to see this. Whatever it was. She was quite sure human brains were not supposed to be an angry red shot through with green. But this one was.

Scar poked at it again, clicked to himself, and reached into his armor. He uncorked a little opaque vial and poured the smoking contents over the woman's head. The head smoked and boiled away into nothing, eating clear through the body and into the metal bar below it.

Lex blinked. That was not good. Scar and his people hunted and took trophies, that was what they did. For him to ruin someone's potentially displayable head like that...whatever was going on was not good at all. She watched the Predator carefully. He straightened, put away his little acid bottle and retracted his wrist blades with a soft _snick_. For a long moment they watched each other, neither moving a muscle. Then the little girl's stomach growled.

Lex sighed, breaking eye contact with Scar. It really was unfair that he had such pretty eyes. Ugh. She needed to be shot. And if he could tell what she was thinking, Lex was sure beyond reasonable doubt that he would be the one doing the shooting. If he knew...she'd be a smoking crater.

Lex poked the child in the shoulder. "What's your name kid?"

Dark eyes stared at Scar with blatant distrust, but finally moved over to her. "Izumi."

The voice was quiet, and Lex barely heard it. She stared. "You're not afraid...you've seen him before. You took his picture in the park didn't you?"

The little girl nodded.

Lex knelt, as best as she was able on the bar. "I'll make you a deal. We get off this bridge and I'll feed you breakfast. Sound good?"

Izumi nodded vigourously.

"By the way, my name's Lex." Lex glanced over at the Predator, who was still watching them silently. "I've been calling him Scar."

When she moved off down the bars spanning the bridge, towing the little girl behind her, she was rather surprised to hear Scar follow them. Then again, that didn't necessarily mean anything. The Predator clearly did whatever he wanted. And it was quite obvious he was content to follow her around for the time being. Lex knew that she could never seriously hide from him. Not for long anyway. She just wasn't that well trained. She frowned a little. She was not even a challenge, even when she was trying to hide. Maybe following her was his idea of fun. Ugh, thinking about the intricacies of their weird little relationship made her brain hurt.

Lex had no idea whether this slapstick patchwork party of theirs would work, but for now, it was all she had. It would have to do.

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_To be continued..._


	9. Of Camping and Planning

**Author's Note**:_ Everyone should watch Dead Snow. Nazi Zombies to the third power of an awesome soundtrack (Vegard+Snowmachine) = AWESOMENESS. This is my algebra._

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**Of Camping and Planning**

_IX_

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Lex held her hands out towards the fire, which crackled and popped in varying degrees of orange with great gusto. She alternated warming her cold fingers, and watching the rabbit that turned on a spit over the fire. She was proud of herself, really. She hadn't actually hunted anything since her dad died, and she refused to count that god-awful stint in the pyramid in Antarctica. That wasn't hunting at all, that was survival in the deepest sense.

She hadn't hunted anything in years, and the closest she'd come since then in the dressing of game department was marinating a couple steaks every Christmas. She was damn proud, she amended. She'd managed to slit the rabbit up the middle without getting the guts and spoiling the meat, and she'd forgotten just how easily a rabbit's skin slid off of the body. Easy peasy.

She could tell the Predator was impressed too. Or at least she hoped he was. He didn't say anything, but he follow her as she stalked the rabbit, watched as she set the snare for it in the only clover patch she could find, then stood silently behind her as they both waited for the rabbit to take the bait. Scar never moved, and they waited for a good half hour. She realized she should be frightened at just how still and patient he could be. He obviously could sit there for hours, not moving a muscle when it came to hunting his prey. The thought was rather chilling.

When the rabbit finally took the bait and hopped into the snare, and Lex was glad she made it so big. She would not have relished sitting in that stupid clearing for hours on end waiting for the rabbit decide to hop into the right part of the clover patch. Not to mention she'd end up looking like an idiot in front of a perfect hunter whose species already thought humans were a retarded bunch of cattle.

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Scar watched her as she carefully cleaned the rabbit. Her hands shook slightly under the weight of his heavy stare, and several times she almost made some clumsy mistakes. Seriously, the scrutinizing Predator made her feel as though she were back in grade school and her teacher was watching her write out her ABC's in cursive. Mrs. Yabronski ruled the second grade with an iron fist, and by the end of that year Lex had felt like she'd been able to write cursive better than Thomas Jefferson.

Izumi had been unaffected by Scar's hovering act. She moved around the Predator like he was an over sized lizard: Huge, slightly strange and quite possibly dangerous, but over all just there and most likely not about to hurt her if she left him alone.

The little girl had jumped into the impromptu cooking scission with an impressive amount of zeal. She'd scrambled off into the woods and had in no time at all had returned with a bunch of shady looking mushrooms and some greens Lex was vaguely able to identify as wild horseradish. At least she thought it was wild horseradish. It actually could have been hemlock for all she knew. Her outdoors skills were sadly lacking, to her complete chagrin. She hoped fervently that the Predator was not able to sense that, and she hoped that he was impressed with her rabbit.

She would bet cold hard cash that the Predator young were set loose in the wild in some sort of Spartan type ritual with nothing but their equivalent of a butter knife and a whole bunch of angst.

She poked at the rabbit. Izumi kept trying to rip pieces off and got burned fingers for her trouble. Lex chuckled. When she deemed the rabbit done enough to where they wouldn't get food poisoning, she pulled it from the fire and awkwardly ripped it in half. She and the kid spent the next thirty minutes happily juggling rabbit bits and trying not to burn themselves.

"Oh my god," Lex groaned, rabbit juice dribbling down her chin, "This is totally better than I thought it would be. Thumper makes a good first course."

The little girl giggled, and her face looked just like Lex knew her own did: happy and covered in dinner. For a moment they were occupied in stuffing their faces, and then a sharp crackle and pop from Scar's end of the camp drew their attention. For a moment Lex thought they were being attacked, and she'd dropped what was left of her rabbit and her fingers were scrabbling for her Sig Sauer before she realized everything was fine. Scar was fussing at his wrist computer and the complex machine had barfed out a hologram of what appeared to be the dead crazy lady's brain. Lex watched, fascinated.

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Scar poked at his computer, and the little brain hologram rotated and split into sections. Certain parts were discarded, but others were highlighted and magnified. The computer whirred and blew up one of the greener areas, and Lex was slightly horrified to see that it was moving all on its on. Scar zeroed in on the wiggling spot, and soon a creepy looking something that rather looked like bright green spaghetti with eyes took the spotlight. Scar growled.

"What the hell is that?" Lex asked, "Was that in that lady's head?"

The Predator chirped at her. His jabbed a claw at his wrist computer, and the sections of the woman's brain where the unholy something was lurking popped back up. Lex squinted. She was by no means accomplished in human anatomy, well sure she'd taken her basic crash EMT course, every climber had to, but this was something entirely out of her field. As far as she could tell it was the neocortex, the section of the brain that dealt with higher functions such as reasoning, memory, thinking, learning, and so on. Of course, she hadn't a course on this sort of thing since college, and that was just basic biology. She was by no means an expert. Lex wish not for the first time for access to a computer. Wikipedia righted all wrongs.

Scar tapped his computer again, and Lex and Izumi watched unable to tear their eyes away. The brain rotated again, and the neocortex was completely eaten away and one of the little spaghetti bugs slid in to take its place. The filmy green tendrils snaked out taking over the brain and sending commands to the body. The computer's image of the brain shrunk, revealing its human host in its entirety. A countdown clock in Yautja started up in the corner with a human military time one underneath it.

Lex grinned inwardly. If giving her a handy dandy clock wasn't coddling, she didn't know what was. She didn't think that Predators even had the world 'coddle' in their vocabulary.

All three watched as the spaghetti bug infected its host and then multiplied. Over the course of a simulated three days, the woman's body bent and her hair fell out and she began to scream and claw at herself. After three days she no longer walked upright and preferred darkness to the painful light of day. The screen zeroed in on her pupils which had dilated to the size of quarters. Only a thin ring of pale blue remained. The screen pulled back again.

What was left was a monster. It was barely possible to tell that this woman had even been human at any point.

Lex swallowed. "So what's the deal? Is it an actual bug? Or a virus? What?"

Scar tapped his helmet. The machine whirred. _ "...Cowards are...defeated...infect...unknown pathogen...changes the host and...breed...once environment is...destroyed."_

Lex chewed her lip. "Lemme get this straight: You say the Soohang are already defeated, and they're giving us this...this _plague_ as a consolation prize?"

The Predator nodded. Lex massaged her temples. An alien plague that infected its hosts' brain and turned them insane before killing them. Goody goody gumdrops, could her day get any better?

Scar pointed in the dirt and clicked at her. Lex looked down. The remains of her dinner lay in the dirty ash of the fire which had almost consumed it at this point.

"Bollocks."

Scar gave her what passed for his laugh, that chittering purr and if he didn't think she got it, he interlaced it with a sound bite of Dr. Richards' nasal chuckle. Lex showed him her teeth.

"I so hate you right now," she muttered, "Jerk."

To add insult to injury, her stomach growled.

.

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_To be continued..._


	10. In Which there is Predator Observation

**Author's Note:** _Sitting in History A102 right now, and let me tell you the man teaching it makes me want to cry. Okay, so maybe I'm flirting with danger by ignoring him, but still. This is more fun. Anyhoodly, I changed the format around a bit but that's just because this is from Scar's point of view and I'm trying to be clever. I didn't post the translations, I figured that enough fics already do that for me to be lazy. If you do have questions, just Google Predator language. If enough of you have questions...I'll get unlazy and post the translations. I kinda wanna stay lazy though. (^_^)_

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**Of Personal Observation**

_X_

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S'caar poked at his wrist computer and snarled in frustration when it showed him that the predicted rate of decay within the human society from the Soo'hang pathogen was worse than he had originally thought. He was no scientist, but from the looks of things this planet had roughly a year to live. Once the pathogen had exhausted its preferred human hosts it would move on to the surrounding environment, consuming everything in its path like an extremely virulent plague.

Ugh, it was the end to a perfectly pleasant hunting ground. This happened to him far to often to be amusing.

No doubt that was the Soo'hang's intention. They could not win an outright war with the Ooman planet, not with the oomans as tenacious as they were and the Yautja backing them from the shadows. The Soo'hang had no chance and they knew it. So they'd decided to plague the planet so that no one would win it. Cowards.

He really felt like he should have seen this coming. Fighting weasels of their caliber with no honor to begin with, it stood to reason that they'd cower in the shadows and pull a move as sniveling and as stupid as this.

He frowned. In a way the parasite was like the Kainde Amedha. It obliterated everything in its way and it was extremely hard to kill. Unlike the hard meat, however, this plague was not something he was equipped to deal with. S'caar doubted even with the use of most advanced Pyode Amedha Biomedical lab he would be unable to defeat this foe. At least on a grand scale anyway. There was no way he'd be able to create an antidote and mass distribute it, even if he was willing, and he wasn't.

From what he could tell, the plague was impossible to kill until it destroyed the brain of its host and took over. Then simple destruction of the head would cause the parasite to die. Once bonded with the host it would be impossible for it to survive on its own. However that still left the time it took for the parasite to reach maturity. As far as he could tell, once infected there was no hope.

He tapped his mandibles together thoughtfully.

The hard part would be figuring out a way to detect the parasite, and if possible prevent infection. He fiddled with his computer. According to the diagnostic he'd run, the injections he had gotten at the beginning of the hunt on the ooman planet to prevent sickness from ooman viruses or bacteria were still effective. He frowned. He was protected for the moment, but the injections wouldn't last forever.

They'd taken a severe hit already when the Kainde Amedha chestburster had achieved maturity and had exploded from his body like a demonic spirit. The medlab on the ship had managed to repair the damage done to his body but the protective serums he had been given had been sapped severely.

He snarled. That certainly brought back unpleasant memories.

And he was once again back in that stupid arctic wasteland, remembering.

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He remembered pain, so excruciating that he thought he'd died and had gone to be judged by Cetanu. He had realized through the haze of agony that he had lived after all, and that his Pack had borne his body to the medical bay in the ship. He had thought that in facing the Kainde Amedha Queen he would achieve death and honor and that the abomination within him would have been killed, but it instead looked like death was laughing at him.

Not only had he failed at the hunt, but he'd also failed at achieving true death and had instead brought it on his Pack.

He remembered with perfect horrifying clarity the shame at lying helpless in the medbay listening to the roars and screams as his Pack members had died, butchered at the hands of the monstrosity that he had carried in his body. The chamber in the medical bay had kept him alive and protected him through the chaos of the crash and the arrival of the Elder Hunter.

When he'd been able, he had stumbled from the wreck to find a world smoking and overrun with Kainde Amedha. He'd stayed away from the Elder. He knew perfectly well what he was now, and what his Elder's mission was. The Elder was there to avenge the remains of his Clan and to destroy the abomination. He was the Arbitrator, and if he knew that S'caar had still lived...he would have been gunning for him along with the Yautja Kainde Amedha aberration.

S'caar knew that he was now a Bad Blood, someone targeted for destruction for having brought about the extermination of his entire Pack. He knew that he should seek the honorable way out, the honorable death, but he just couldn t bring himself to do it.

Maybe he was a coward. He snarled.

He remembered perfectly the lingering cloying smell of his ooman flesh bag's scent, and the way she had not been afraid of him and had fought beside him with no fear. She had even killed Kainde Amedha he'd thrown at her with one stab. Granted it had been with his spear and she'd bitched about it afterwards in her squeaky little pig language, but still. She had butchered the monstrosities like a seasoned hunter, and had come back and had saved his sorry ass on more than one occasion. That was awesome and he was impressed in spite of himself. There were hunters of better caliber than she who had gotten their asses handed to him by less.

She'd been a true hunter, a worthy companion. Her flat squashy face had haunted him. He had itched to know what had become of her, whether his Pack had taken her head or let her go free. He had been unable to live without knowing.

He had made his way from the doomed ooman city, carving his way from it leaving a trail of Kainde Amedha corpes and the occasional unfortunate ooman who had dared cross him in his wake.

It took him a while, mostly because he was trying to convince himself that he was most definitely not really searching for her, just merely going in the direction she just happened to be in, but he finally caught up with her. Her fellows had stuck her in a prison for the insane and kept her locked in what was basically a box.

It seemed most Pyode Amedha would not know an honorable warrior if it hit them in the face with a dead fish.

He had debated on how to break her out. He was presumed dead by his Clan and he wanted it to stay that way. Unfortunately the human facility was rather well secured and there seemed to be no way even he could bust in and ninja her stupid ass out without getting caught. He had absolutely no desire to fly back onto his Clan's radar, no siree not even for her. He may be a coward if wanting to stay alive was cowardly, then so be it.

And to his complete shock and chagrin she had rescued herself. He had been completely surprised to find that he was proud of her in spite of himself. He'd have to stop over estimating her. She always took his perceived typical picture of the average Pyode Amedha female and blew it up and stomped on it, then looked at him like he was retarded and why the hell was he judging her? He laughed at the memory.

She had come out of there with not a scratch on her, dragging some fat pig that squealed even louder than she did.

And then she had gone toe to toe with a Soo'hang warrior with absolutely no fear. She had recognized the threat and met it head on without hesitating. He didn't know why he had saved her life exactly. It was certainly not the honorable thing to do, rescue a hunter who was about to be taken down because he failed at battle. He just for some reason didn't want her to die. He couldn't explain it. It was weird. The thought of loosing her life spark frightened him.

He shuddered. It gave him the heebie jeebies just thinking about it.

But still, he could not deny that she was a formidable warrior. Against her own kind, against his kind, against the Soo'hang, and against the Kainde Amedha she had proven herself time and time again. And then she'd had the audacity to run from him! And she had probably figured that he wouldn t have been able to find her. Hah.

He glanced over his little ooman creature that called herself Lex. She was hunched over the fire trying to pick the remains of the soft furry thing she'd been able to catch for her dinner, and was dancing around trying to get the dirt off of it. He shook his head and trilled to himself, his dreads shaking around his face like the tentacles of an octopus. She looked ridiculous. Hardly what one would think of when they pictured a Blooded Warrior.

But still, she was. And that little shrimp she'd picked up in the short time she had managed to run from him wasn't half bad either. The child had screamed like some sort of simian when confronted with danger, but he had watched the little runt continue to pull Lex onto the supports of the bridge even though she could see the monstrosity heading for her and knowing that death was imminent. That was brave and honorable. A spirit like that deserved his protection.

S'caar withdrew the viewing device he'd stolen from Lex and poked at it. She'd thrown a fit when he messed with it, but he really couldn't see why she was complaining really. It was better now.

The mechanical sensor he had constructed from its remains wasn't enough protect them but it would serve as an early warning sign to the parasite's presence. He carefully siphoned off a bit of the energy from the power pack fueling his computer and fed it into the sensor. It whirred to life with a couple of pops then stood shakily up. It immediately wandered over to his female flesh bag and banged into her shins. She shrieked dropping her food again. Into the dirt. He chuckled to himself. He was glad he'd decided to give it legs.

He grinned. Maybe things weren't so bad. Lex yelled at him angrily from the other side of the camp and shook her tiny fist.

Awesome.

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_To be continued._


	11. In which there is Revelation

**Author' s Note:** _I have gone back through the story and changed things around again, and added more meat to the bones. Hopefully I've improved it and you guys are happy. I really do love hearing from you and getting feedback, your reviews keep me going! On another note I finally know where I am going to take this story and the end is in sight. Long ways away and I have to use a telescope to see it, but it's there never fear!_

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing_.

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**Of Revelation**

_XI_

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_Three months later_

Lex crouched painfully atop a scorched hillock just outside of Nashville Tennessee, watching the ruined city through a pair of high powered binoculars. The city was still smoking slightly, much like every other city they'd passed through. She didn't doubt that it would ever stop smoking for a long, long time. The fires would never stop burning, no matter where they went.

The plague had over run the world it seemed. One day it seemed to just be pure panic, then the next people were changing. Changing and ripping out their hair and their skin, crawling on all fours and hunting those that were left. The ones that had the misfortune to be left alive instead of eaten all the way had a few days maybe before they to succumbed to the disease.

Lex chewed thoughtfully on her last stick of gum, rolling the fruity wad around in her mouth carefully before blowing a bubble that when it popped it covered the entire lower half of her face and the underside of the binoculars.

She sighed.

She dropped the binoculars and picked at the gum. She didn't really see anyway around it. They needed supplies and they were almost out of food and medicine. Scar was a good hunter, no questioning that, but there was only so much that he could do if the only game to be found was a few skinny rabbits and once and a while a malnourished deer. Lex found that she and Izumi were eating mice and snakes just to stay alive. If it moved and it wasn't a Changed or a sentient creature, they ate it. They scrounged and did what they could but the malnourishment was starting to show. Lex knew her cheekbones were standing out and she could feel her hip bones protruding in boney nubs over her jeans. She could count each and every one of Izumi's ribs. Even Scar was showing signs of starvation. Lex was privately amazed that the Predator had stuck with them for this long. Scar would most likely better survive on his own, though he didn't seem to have anywhere in particular to go. She often woke up from dreams of him attempting to eat them.

Still though, Earth was turning out to be a Hunter's Paradise. The Changed were certainly a bitch to kill. That seemed to be the sort of thing the Predators would be just jonesing for, and she was surprised that Scar seemed to prefer to hang around with a couple of weak and uninteresting humans rather than plunge straight into the center of the nearest Changed pack and start blasting.

Not for the first time she wondered if there was something wrong with him. The whole babysit weak human mentality that he seemed to be going along with didn't seem to be the general consensus with his buddies. If anything, the few times they'd run into Predator Packs coming to hunt, Scar had hid and demanded that Lex hide too. Hell he'd practically sat on her. Izumi was fine, he hadn't paid much attention to her, and Lex believed that it was because the girl was a mere child while she was an adult and and bore his little warrior mark. Shit like that seemed to make sense nine times out of ten anyway. She rolled her eyes, then looked down and groaned when her stomach growled.

The plague had hit the planet hard in the few months it had had to run amok. It seemed to stick with people, fortunately, and stay away from the flora and fauna, but the Changed had multiplied almost unnaturally. It had been weeks since they'd seen another normal human being. Lex knew that did not bode well for humanity, and wondered what the hell they were going to do. They wouldn't be able to stay this way for long. Lex was surprised they'd lasted as long as they did. Though the many, many close calls had alerted her to the fact that they were on a clock that was fast running out. They would not be able to keep this up for long, no doubt about it.

She chewed her gum thoughtfully. It looked like the streets were relatively clear, which was good, less places for the Changed to hide and more of a chance for them to stay undetected.

The Changed attacked each other, and hunted whatever and whenever they could willy nilly. Whatever they could find, they hunted it like tenacious dogs and killed and ate like monsters. They were never sated. They were always hungry.

It took them little time at all to realize that the head was not the easiest place to strike. The pathogen seemed almost sentient, and protected its host body with an almost manic precision. Lex and Scar soon discovered that dismemberement was the best course of action. Go for the limbs and slow it down before chopping off the head. Only thing was, they had to be quick.

The Changed hunted in groups

After a while they seemed to notice that the Changed hunted in packs of at least five or six, and preferred to hunt at night rather than the glaring light of day. They stuck to the ruined cities and towns where there were more hiding places away from the sun and daylight, which made places where human dwellings were in abundance that much more dangerous. Which made what they were about to do incredibly stupid. Most of her plans seemed to be stupid these days, but this one took the cake.

Lex retrieved most of her gum and stuck it back in her mouth. Her gut insisted that this was an incredibly idiotic idea, but they didn't really have a choice. They needed the supplies. They still had the bright sunlight to protect them and theoretically if they were quick and quiet they could get in and out before any of the Changed noticed their presence. In theory.

It never went according to plan though. The shit always hit the proverbial fan. Always. Lex just preferred to know which fan and with which sort of shit and at what time, rather than have the Universe pop up and say 'Ta Da!' and surprise her.

Finally giving up on the now filthy binoculars she dumped them on the ground and slumped in the dirt. They might as well go now, before the sun set. If they were still in the area after night fall the Changed would scent them and be on them like pale spidery bloodhounds. She frowned, again contemplating the ruined city. She had never been to Nashville and wished she had time to scout the layout of the city. Walking into an unknown place filled with bloodthirsty monsters had never been on her list of fun things. It was funny how she really didn't get a choice in the matter.

Damned if she did, damned if she didn't.

Izumi scrambled up next to her and gave a cry of frustration when she noticed the gum covered binoculars. The little girl glared at her and began to scrape gum daintily up with the aid of a finger nail and a stick. Lex chuckled and tugged affectionately on one of her pigtails.

"It's just gum, kiddo, it'll come off. Eventually."

Izumi fixed her with a hard stare, then muttered under her breath, "_Baka_."

Lex had gotten used to the girl's affectionate insults and having heard it enough figured this one to be along the lines of stupid or idiot. At least she certainly said it a lot when Lex was doing something retarded. Lex laughed and tugged on Izumi's pigtail again.

"Hey, don't be mad," she said, tugging again, "Your hair's coming loose, I'll fix it for you."

Izumi sniffed and turned up her little nose, then crawled into Lex's lap. Alexa combed her fingers through the little girl's hair and carefully reattached her yellow banana barrettes. They sat there for a moment quietly listening to the crackle and pop of the city burning and the wind scuffling the dirt around them. It was the little, almost normal moments like this, that were the worst sometimes, Lex reflected. They only served to remind her of a time where she might have possibly gotten married, and maybe had a daughter like Izumi. She knew Izumi was feeling it too from the way the little girl's shoulders were slumped and the tell tale sniffling that showed the possibility of tears.

Lex had no idea if the girl had family left alive, but she knew she had to have had some at some point. A reaction like that was plainly a little kid missing their mom.

A quiet trilling shattered the moment like a bomb at a cocktail party. Scar crackled and popped back into the visible spectrum and dumped a dead possum onto Lex's head. It awkwardly bounced off, _rigor mortis_ having set in, and it smelled the wrong side of shady.

Lex just sighed. She was used to it, sadly enough. Scar never said hello, he seemed to get a huge kick out of getting her attention by tripping her, throwing something at her, or dropping something dead and smelly into her hair. Lex could always tell when he was bored when he'd make mini traps for her to stumble into around their campsites.

She pulled the possum off and examined it. It actually wasn't that bad, there were parts that were edible. She shrugged. Dinner would smell funny tonight, but at least they would eat. She looked up at him, and Scar crouched next to her in the dirt.

She waved a hand at the ruined city, "What'cha think?"

He clicked to himself, mandibles knitting together in thought. She watched one long clawed finger carefully draw in the dirt. She peered closer. The drawing was surprisingly small and complex and she strained to make sense of what he was doing. A loud bang had her scrambling up out of the dirt a second later and onto her haunches before she realized he'd dropped his helmet onto her binoculars with his other hand.

Scar served her his laugh and scrabbled out his little doodle with his foot.

Lex showed him her teeth. "Asshat. Seriously, what do you think? Walk straight in or do you have an epic plan you wanna share with the class."

Scar poked her in the forehead for the insult, then tapped at his computer. "_Walk...a straight line...glory...in death."_

Lex sighed. "Straight line and in and out, yes, we can do that. The dying? Not so much."

She cursed when she realized Scar had turned her pretty high powered binoculars into a bunch of scrap. She looked at him angrily, "Why is it you always ruin and destroy my shit?"

The Predator chose not to grace this with an answer, and instead turned and reattached his helmet. Lex watched his broad departing back. Into the city it was then. Izumi picked up the possum and swung it by its spindly legs before trotting after the Predator. Lex shook her head, grabbed up the pack, and followed.

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_To be continued..._


	12. Of New Allies and Weird Stuff

**Author's Note:** _ Here we go again. Please love me and review! By the way, listening to Hollow, by Submersed. It's a good song!_

**Disclaimer:**_ I own nothing._

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**Of New Allies and Weird Stuff**

_XII_

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The first thing she noticed as they crept through the streets of the outskirts of Nashville was the silence.

The wind stirred up the dust from the hard ground with just a bare hush, but otherwise the world was still. Nothing moved. The sun glinted down onto a world that was quiet, most of its citizens dead or Changed. It was oddly pretty. Plants were taking over the streets and the sunlight glinted off of dusty cars and garbage. It was so quiet. The only thing that raised Lex's hackles was the silence. No animals anywhere. One thing she would have expected of the end of the world was that along with the flora going wild, the fauna would have boomed too. But not so, the animals had been hunted to near scarcity by the humans left and the Changed who killed pretty much everything in sight. Except that now humanity was nearly extinct. In just a few months humans had nearly been wiped from the face of the planet by the plague. They hadn't seen another uninfected person in over a fortnight.

Looking around at the quiet streets she could almost imagine nature taking over to the point where in a few years there would probably be no evidence left that humanity had even been on this planet. She stopped a moment and breathed. It was weird to not smell the stink of exhaust and hear the honk of cars, and instead smell flowers and plants and dirt. Even after all this time she still expected to have to dodge cars whenever they crossed a street.

Scar trilled at her, annoyed.

Her eyes snapped to him, wondering what the hell he wanted now. She wasn't making noise and there were no baddies lurking dangerously that she could see. What did he want? Scar's heavy brow ridge furrowed and he flared his mandibles at her, jerking a massive fist onward. Ah yes, she got the message: hurry up human flesh bag, no time to smell the roses. Well, move along, she could do that.

Once he saw she was following again he tromped onward, heavy metal boots making surprisingly little sound on the cracked pavement.

Oh well, at least he hadn't started throwing things. They were making progress. She resumed her walk, SIG Sauer up and tracking doorways and windows, and her spear within easy reach. Just because the Changed didn't like attacking in daylight didn't mean they wouldn't give it a go if they thought they'd get a square meal out of it.

Sunlight hurt them, burned their skin and badly and left sun spots on their bulbous and protruding eyes that left them near blind. It didn't kill them though, which was the pity. They were weak but not dead.

Her brown eyes slid from doorway to doorway, studying the alleyways and the streets devoid of life. She sighed.

It was sad, just sad. She couldn't get over the fact that there were no college kids talking and grouping in the little indie coffee shops, no harried parents shepherding their kids out of the schools, cops writing tickets...nothing.

Right about now, if the world hadn't gone to shit and she hadn't been stuck in a mental hospital, she'd be having coffee in her favorite coffee shop and reading over the next job offer. Probably would have been another tourist expedition up some girly mountain and she'd have to play the part of park ranger, tour guide, and mommy. She had hated it. Funny, she'd give almost anything to be able to go back to that life now.

Sad.

Cars were abandoned and Lex spied dirty computers left alone in an internet café. She shook her head dismally as her brown eyes slid from computer to computer, and then to the shape of someone's dusty smartphone lying abandoned on a chair. The first month of the apocalypse her subconscious had itched to nick things like that, whispering that they'd be worth something if the world ever got its act together again.

That itch was gone now, and it had been gone for a while. Now it was just plain disheartening.

He gaze flicked to the Predator stalking ahead of them, his stride never changing though he had to have been tiring. They'd been keeping up this march for almost a week now, and none of them had had a proper meal in who knew how long. Lex knew that she'd gotten four hours of sleep the past night, and three the night before. She never saw Scar rest, the Predator prowled the outskirts of their camp like a predator guarding his territory and making sure the monsters in the dark new what was his.

Lex found herself smiling at his broad armored back, to her slight surprise. She was glad he hadn't left them. She had absolutely no clue at all why the Predator stuck around but they'd have been dead a long time ago were it not for him.

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Scar had taken lead again, and Lex took up their six with Izumi tucked carefully in between them. They'd fallen into a pattern over the months they'd been running together, a pattern worn necessary by survival. Scar, with the best senses, equipment, and quickest reaction time took point more often than not, as Izumi was the weakest link she walked in the middle, best protected by the two hunters.

Or rather, protected by Lex anyway. Scar didn't necessarily go out of his way to protect either of them, Lex amended, but he certainly did kick the ass of whatever chose to tangle with him.

It helped that she and Izumi just happened to be nearby him more often than not, and that whatever vicious monster chose to play ball wasn't picky about its targets, and wasn't too bright either. If she'd been an evil gut sucking monster, she couldn't see why the preferred target would be the hulking alien literally armed to the teeth in deadly weaponry. And yet the Changed consistently chose to attack Scar at least eight times out of ten. Maybe they thought there was more meat on his bones. Whatever. The Universe was a constant mystery.

Not that she was complaining anyway. Oh no. By all means evil creepy crawly monsters, go for the Predator, it was no skin off her nose.

As they stalked the streets of Nashville searching for food and other supplies, or in Scar's case another chance to prove his baddassery by walloping the head off of a Changed, they kept their senses alert to danger. Lex brought up the end of the train, spear always warily extended and brown eyes peeled for any Changed searching for a bit of Humanburger Helper.

Scar stalked ahead of them, head methodically scanning all angles and his shoulder cannon tracked, following his gaze. Every now and then he'd stop and scent the wind, holding motionless for a moment before continuing on like he'd never stopped it all.

Izumi skipped along, swinging the possum and not paying attention at all. After a few prods from both Lex and the Predator during the first few weeks they'd traveled together she'd stopped her habit of humming and singing, but she still retained her habit of skipping and dancing to tunes only she could hear. She wasn't worried. Her method of creature defense was allow Lex and the Predator to provide initial distraction for whatever was attacking them while she hid. It had worked so far so the little girl continued to entertain herself while they walked and refused to skitter along like a frightened rabbit.

Which was good. In Lex's firm opinion kids should be kids, and jumping at shadows was not a good way to live.

Lex was glad Izumi wasn't exactly scared and that she had adapted so well, but she was sorry the kid couldn't sing or talk to herself. It was obvious that the girl had talked and sung to hear her familiar Japanese, and to now be only able to hear a little English that she barely understood and Scar's bizarre clicks and growls was probably misery.

She and Lex communicated with rudimentary hand signals and one or two word phrases, and Lex was slowly learning some Japanese and Izumi vise versa, but it was still hard.

Lex sighed. She added a Japanese to English dictionary to the list of things she needed to loot. At the very least she and Izumi would be able to talk to each other easier, and at the most the little girl would be more comfortable; not exactly happy, there was to be no happiness in this shitbox of a world, but it would be a start.

Speaking of which, she unslung her pack and dropped it.

With one eye on her petulant Predator, she opened her pack to again log their current supply and determine the highest priorities on their list.

As always, her med kit was running low. Painkillers (which Scar scorned and went out of his way to get rid of if she ever left them unguarded as to him only a weakling or an idiot would need them), more gauze and medical tape, medical thread, and burn gel as Izumi had used the last of it when she'd tripped and put a hand into the coals of the fire two weeks ago. There was the standard need of food, and Lex was hoping to find an army surplus store so they could get more MREs.

She raised her head when Scar tossed a small rock at her and it bounced off of her temple. Rubbing her abused noggin, her brown eyes found his golden green ones glinting faintly behind his mask and she sighed. He shook his head at her, and rumbled irritatedly. He turned and continued stalking down the street. She got the message: pay attention, idiot.

She crossed her eyes at him and showed him her teeth, the best insult she could come up with under the circumstances. Asshole.

She knew why he did it, honestly, but all in all with him there she didn't feel like he needed to create such a fuss. She had a feeling he was just being a brat. Lex didn't allow herself to be lax of course, but she had learned quickly to take advantage of the Predator's sharper senses over the months. Scar's perfect sense of smell was almost insane, and he usually heard approaching monsters long before she or Izumi ever did. Lex figured all that had to compensate for his terrible eyesight. She couldn't imagine seeing only fuzzy heat signatures.

She'd gotten pretty good at reading Scar's body language, and if the Predator wasn't worried than she figured she had time to lower her guard somewhat.

They stuck to the outskirts and didn't have a problem. Nashville was a ghost town, the bodies of its previous inhabitants that weren't Changed had been eaten or decomposed long ago.

There was no sign of life, other than the plants.

.

.

Scar wouldn't let them loot the first gas station they came to.

The little four pump Holiday looked perfectly okay to Lex, but Scar wouldn't even get near the empty parking lot. She wanted to loot it. Other than the parking lot being oddly clean and devoid of cars, she could see nothing wrong with it. And a clean pump meant no one else had been near it and it was practically new. No looters meant more stuff for them, more things that they could use.

She was itching to go inside, but the Predator's behavior made her pause.

Scar was more alert than normal. His tracking laser swept the dark glass, flicking from one pane to another and back again. Scar flanked Izumi, and for the first time he moved in a way where Lex was directly behind him where they'd be best able to take opposition. A cold chill ran down Lex's spine. Scar had never outright protected her before and it terrified her. He'd stuck around sure, but he had never actively tried to make sure nothing would hurt the feeble creatures he ran with.

He was protecting them now, and it worried her more than she liked to admit.

Lex grasped Izumi's shoulder, and muttered, "Come on."

Izumi shrank close to her, recognizing that all wasn't right, and the little girl's dark eyes were wide with fright, searching for monsters that were there, but not seen. It was a tense stand off with an enemy Lex could not see, but that she could sense.

Scar's tracking laser alighted on the shadowy doors and Lex thought she saw movement. "To dance or not to dance," she murmured under her breath.

Scar's gaze flicked to her, then back at the forlorn little gas station.

He roared.

The challenge echoed throughout the little parking lot like a blast from a cannon and Lex's ears rang. She wanted to jiggle her tingling inner ear, but would not drop her Sig SAUER from the upright position. She fished a flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on, resting the light on the wrist holding the gun on the one supporting the flashlight to steady her aim. The beam swept the dark glass of the gas station like a strobe light and found nothing. For a moment she'd thought she'd seen something moving within the darkness of the store, something huge that just barely moved out of the light before she caught it, something giant mass with pallid skin and huge staring eyes.

A moment passed.

No dice. Whatever was lurking in there was not answering Scar's challenge. If Scar had been the frat boy that Lex sometimes imagined him as then he would have deflated dejectedly at the refusal of his little roar challenge. Nothing happened and the parking lot remained quiet. Alrighty then. None of them were idiots and Lex sure as hell wasn't going to go into an unknown situation on the monster's turf. If they weren't going to come play outside, then they didn't get to play at all.

"Scar," she whispered, "Can we get out of here, please? I don't know exactly what you expected to happen, but I really don't want to stick around and find out."

Scar glanced at her, and then shook his head, dreads flailing, with a growly woofing noise that would have made her laugh if the situation hadn't been so serious. He backed away, not showing the gas station his back. They were leaving.

Which was alright with Lex, she was quite fond of her limbs and the Changed kept trying to chew them off. If she didn't get into a fight, she didn't run the chance of getting eaten. Tangles with the Changed raised the Lex-Getting-Munched probability ratio to dangerous proportions.

Scar herded them away from the station, and Lex had no idea what they'd just avoided but she trusted the Predator who's shoulder burner was still tracking the quiet gas station. It was the weirdness of the situation that gave her the heebie jeebies.

A few steps down the street and she realized where the cars from the Holiday gas station had gone. She'd _thought_ the parking lot had been oddly clean and empty for a post apocalyptic resource, and now she knew what had happened.

Two busted up Honda Civics and a dark little Volvo were tossed into a pile a little ways down the street, along with all the garbage that had probably littered the Holiday parking lot. Lex went cold. It _had_ been a trap. Scar had been right to steer clear of that place: something had been laying in wait for them, something with enough brains to set a trap, and enough brawn to toss three cars into a pile like they were bits of dirty laundry.

What if the Changed were _changing_ again...a new stage in their evolution? But evolution didn't happen that fast. Well, not necessarily, this was an alien plague. _Anything_ could happen.

She hoped dearly that what the dark little voice in the back of her mind whispered wasn't true. It couldn't be. The Changed had no capacity for higher learning, other than working in animalistic packs to hunt; they couldn't think, couldn't plan. And yet…they'd set a trap.

She wanted to be sick. Against all odds the Changed seemed to be learning. It was impossible. From what she'd learned from Scar and what she'd observed on her own, the Changed didn't think. They were animals, animals who hunted in pacts and the most complex thought pattern seemed to be herding their prey like lions on the Savannah. And yet cleaning up the gas station, making it appear intact…that took thought, knowledge of the prey and anticipating an action and planning for it.

Lex admitted it to herself. She was scared.

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The mom and pop store down the street was more promising.

Promising in the way that it had obviously seen looters, many, many times. The flimsy glass doors were cracked and barely hanging off of their runners, and the windows were shattered. There was old dark blood smattering the windows and concrete, and Lex wrinkled her nose even though there was a distinct absence of smell. Things had had time to decompose and rot away, blood still left faint stains all over the floor. It was old blood, but still. Blood meant germs, and none of them could afford to get sick. Even Scar had been most fastidious of late in keeping himself free from germs. It sounded silly, a Predator being afraid of a little bacteria, but it also made sense.

With their preferred sport, hunting, they were bound to come in contact with organisms that they were not biologically able to handle or adapt to. It served to reason that Scar had exhausted whatever kept him protected, and now watching him he was like watching a first class germaphobe who could not find his latex gloves.

It would have been funny if she wasn't afraid of losing him. Scar was one of the few things standing between them and certain death, right before sheer dumb luck. She had no shame in wanting the Predator around, mainly because it was the equivalent of bringing a howitzer to a fist fight.

If the Changed had tear ducts, or understood the concept of crying, they would have certainly been in tears after Scar got through with them in the many skirmishes they'd been in since the world went to shit.

Lex grinned at the sight of him stalking the store, dreads swinging madly has his head slid from side to side, scanning.

Scar did not hesitate but knocked the teetering swinging door from it's fastenings with one blow and stomped inside. He seemed almost disappointed when there wasn't anything to kill and he stomped to the back of the store and into the employee area, snarling to himself.

Lex watched him a moment, wondering what he could possibly be getting up to back there and then decided she was better off not knowing. She went back to searching for the stuff on her list, shoving food and advil and other goodies into her bag. Izumi had gone straight to the candy and was now attempting to suck an entire gummy worm into her mouth without chewing. Lex watched her go almost cross-eyed attempting to get the gummy worm into her mouth, then shuddered. It was only a matter of time before the thing came out her nose. Lex knew from experience; she'd been a kid years ago and knew the entertainment possibilities of getting a worm or a noodle through the mouth to come out of her nose. Hell, she'd scared her grandmother like that more times than she could count.

Therefore she had no desire to watch The Horror of The Gummy Worm at work.

Lex shouldered her pack and moved to the front of the store, fully intending to sit out front and enjoy the sunshine while watching the door to ensure that no Changed tried to brave the sunlight for a quick meal. It took her brain a moment to register the fact that there was already something standing in the doorway of the store, blocking the light.

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_To be Continued..._


	13. Of Familiar Faces and Bonding

**Author's Note:** _Here we go again. Thanks to **Quickstar, Alena S. Anigor, Teddy-wabbitz**, and all the rest of you who have followed this story and loved it, your thoughts and input mean a whole lot to me! So here I am the humble writer saying thank you and you guys are awesome!_

**Disclaimer:**_ I own nothing._

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**Of Familiar Faces and Bonding**

_XIII_

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It took her a moment to react to the heavily armed figure standing in the doorway, face covered by black goggles and a dark scarf.

What got her was the AK-47 pointing right at her face. Lex slowly unsung her pack and dropped it with a bang, as loud as she could in order to alert her companions if they were paying attention, raising her hands to show she wasn't armed and hoping fervently that whoever this dude was he didn't have an itchy trigger finger. He hadn't seen Izumi yet, and it was a safe bet he didn't know about Scar. She had a suspicion that he wouldn't be standing there all hunky dory if he knew the Predator lurked in the back room.

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when stars are…something." Lex sang the shittiest little ditty she knew, and couldn't even remember the end of it.

If they hadn't already figured out that they were in trouble, they would now. Izumi knew Lex couldn't sing for shit and knew that normally she wouldn't even try. Lex couldn't hear Izumi moving, which was a good thing. Hopefully the little girl had figured out that they weren't alone anymore, and that there was a potential hostile entity in the room and that the best thing would be to make tracks as far away from this place as possible. Either way Lex figured that it would be harder for her to do anything if she had to worry about Izumi's safety.

When she'd started singing the muzzle of the machine gun had come up to level with her face but he hadn't fired. He hadn't dropped his gun either. It was a standoff, and Lex was getting irritated. Either he was going to shoot her or he wasn't, but this was getting stupid and her arms were tired.

"So, Sparky," she snapped, "We gonna tango or what? I don't have all day and there are better men than you begging for a piece of this."

The muzzle of the gun wavered, and if she didn't know any better she could swear he was trying not to laugh.

At least his attention was trained fully on Lex, who in turn kept her eyes focused on his dark goggles, hoping that she alone occupied and held his attention. She had noticed her kid slinking along the wall with a steely eyed expression on her face and Lex immediately began to gauge the distance between herself and the masked gunman.

Masked gunman. Shit, she never thought she'd actually be able to use that phrase. Hah! The Universe was a constant mystery.

"Seriously buddy, I'm tired and I smell like the ass end of a donkey, no pun intended. Can I move or what?"

His shoulders began to shake. No doubt about it, the schmuck was laughing. Well, at least he had a sense of humor.

Izumi was right next to him now and before Lex could do or say anything to stop her, not that it would have helped, the girl had hauled back and kicked him in the ankle as hard as she could. Lex couldn't help but wince for a split second. She knew from experience that Izumi kicked like a mule.

The man, which she now knew for sure his gender from his shout, dropped the muzzle of the gun to point at Izumi. He saw it was just a kid an he wavered a moment, the muzzle drifting to and from Izumi's body. Her brain registered fuzzily through the adrenaline that it was good that he was reluctant to shoot a child, even if she died here Izumi would still have a chance. The moment his attention focused on the little girl Lex rushed him. She slammed into him like a freight train, jerking the gun up and away from Izumi and at the same time balling up her fist and punching him as hard as she could in the throat. The man choked and wheezed but he still wasn't stunned for long. Lex felt her heart drop. That hit should have crushed his larynx and laid him out. Shit, she was weaker than she thought.

Lex was good, but she wasn't that good. Her body was malnourished and this dude had obviously had access to better food and better living conditions. He was bigger and stronger and soon they were rolling around the trashed floor, wrestling. She had managed to get the gun away from him in the beginning and toss it away, but she knew it wouldn't be long before he got the better of her.

She was outweighed and outmatched.

Izumi jumped on his back, shrieking into his ear and punched him with her tiny fists. It was probably like getting pummeled by an angry hamster, but Lex still appreciated the sentiment. The man hardly noticed the little girl on his back, or he was loathe to hurt a little kid. Either way all of his attention was on Lex.

He rolled her under him and pressed his forearm against her throat, putting all of his weight on her to try and choke her out. Lex gasped, struggling for air against her slowly closing windpipe and her vision began to go fuzzy and darken.

Abruptly he was torn away from her and Izumi dropped off of him to land on Lex's gut.

"Oof," Lex grunted.

"_Gomennasai,_" Izumi's reply was murmured and she scrambled off of Lex to sit at her side, dark eyes watching the drama play out in front of them.

Scar had arrived, roaring like a lion about to defend his pride.

'_If defend was even the right word_,' Lex's brain muttered fuzzily through the throes of oxygen deprivation, '_Scar probably wouldn't recognize_ defend _and_ human_ in the same sentence even if they bit him on his scaly behind_.'

And that thought, she realized suddenly, saddened her more than she wanted to admit. She saw Scar as her friend, and yet he'd never see her as an equal. He'd never respect her, never care from her. She realized with a sudden jolt that she wasn't afraid of him in the least. If he'd been human, she thought with her heart sinking, they could have been anything, done anything. If only he'd been human. They couldn't been friends, been- ...It broke her heart that the only person she had left in this world was a crab faced alien that got his jollies off making shined human skulls into wall art. Her heart was breaking and there wasn't a thing she could do about it, no comfort she could glean from her epiphanies.

The Universe sure had a sadistic sense of humor.

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Lex sat up, still choking, and watched Scar thoroughly throttle her attacker. The Predator was holding the man up effortlessly with one meaty paw and the stranger had given up trying to attack him and was now focused entirely on keeping his own windpipe from being squashed.

Scar gave him another shake, snarling, and the man's dangling boots jerked like a rag doll's. His attempts to defend himself against the Predator's one handed choke hold was rapidly getting weaker and weaker. Lex sighed. Unfortunately no matter how much she enjoyed watching the jackass who'd tried to kill her get a healthy dose of his own medicine, she still needed some questions answered. Mainly as in: how the hell was he eating so well and dammit where was the food? He wouldn't be able to answer if he was dead.

Now to stop a Predator who was clearly attempting to see if he could pop a man's head off like a dandelion with just one hand. Oh joy.

Lex heaved herself to her feet, groaning. Ugh, she was getting old. She could recall the days when she could fall off of a few cliffs or so and still be able to bounce back up. Now all she wanted to do after getting trashed by the Changed or tussles with Scar, who apparently thought it was cute to keep checking that she was 'on her game', was sit in the dirt and smell the metaphorical roses. With every beating she took it was taking her longer and longer to get back on her feet.

Lex poked Scar in the back and the Predator promptly ignored her. No surprise there.

"Scar? Buddy?" she said, poking him again, "This guy is obviously well fed, and no offense but his friends might not want to share if you turn him into a pretzel pudding."

Scar gave him one last good shake and dropped him where he lay in a heap, limbs sticking out in different directions. Scar stalked over to a corner, highly affronted that he'd had to let go of his prey, where he made an elaborate show of poking at his wrist computer obviously showing that he'd let go because he'd felt like it and not because she'd told him to.

Lex picked her SIG up from where she'd dropped it and pulled back the slide and popped a round into the chamber to show him she meant business, and that she wouldn't hesitate to shoot him if he tried to attack her again.

At the sound he'd tensed and his head had come up to look at her, blank goggles boring into her face like bottomless pits. She couldn't tell whether he was afraid or not, but at least she had his attention. Good. The little bastard was worried. Or, at least, nervous looking. She looked at him again, and almost flinched herself when those shiny goggles met her brown eyes. It was intimidating, and she wasn't sure exactly if that was what he had intended when he picked them out from his evil villain store. Either way, that was just about enough of that.

"Lose the mask buddy," She said, gesturing helpfully with the barrel of the SIG just in case he didn't get it.

He waited half a surely second, than unwound the scarf and plonked his goggles on top of his shiny bald noggin. The face that greeted her was not at all the face she'd been expecting. She knew that dark visage, the hard no nonsense press of that wide mouth, and the piercing don't give a shit eyes.

"Harrigan," she said, deciding not to mention that she knew because of the access to the military files, "You're name is Harrigan. I know you."

His head snapped up and he peered at her, "Now how do you know that, girlie?"

Lex smiled slightly and jerked her chin in Scar's direction. "Because we got him in common."

"Do we now?"

He wasn't buying it, she could see that. Well, if their rolls were reversed she wouldn't either. She had to find something, some common ground that they could connect on. She knew he wasn't going to start trusting her right off the bat. Well, all that mattered right at the moment was they get through the next fifteen minutes without trying to kill each other again. She figured they'd be doing alright if they could make it at least fifteen minutes to twenty. From his file Harrigan had seemed like a decent man, and if he hadn't been changed astronomically by the apocalypse than he could be reasoned with. Besides, he'd been the Fuzz. Fuzz protected people.

Lex figured some trust was in order and she flicked the safety on her SIG and then dropped the hand holding it. Then she sat in the dirt in front of him.

"Listen," she said, gesturing at Scar, "I know this looks bad, but for the most part it is seriously okay."

"Okay."

That 'okay' said that at his earliest convenience, and when they were all looking some other direction he'd shoot them and run in the opposite direction as quick as his old man legs were able. Lex groaned and rubbed her temple with the side of the cold barrel of her SIG. Time to come clean, maybe the whole story would help more than the honesty would.

"I'm going to tell you a little story," she said, finally holstering her gun. She trusted Scar to blast him if he decided to make a move on her when she was defenseless, or at least do something.

He would be retarded not to, anyway. Killing was in Scar's nature and it was what he did best. She had a suspicion that he was watching them talk and that he'd retaliate if Harrigan made any aggressive moves.

He reclined back against a shelf and crossed his arms, and she had to admire his bravado. He'd had a bad run in with the Predators and stuff like that haunted a person for their entire life. That, she certainly knew all too well. So she respected his balls, for lack of a better word, for being in the presence of another Predator and people he didn't know or trust while he was unarmed, and yet still able to make like it was all sunshine and daisies.

"Once upon a time, I was younger and cuter."

Here he snorted, and she was pleased to note she'd managed to amuse him again. Maybe he'd hesitate before he decided to stab her in the back.

"About four years ago, I led an expedition to Antarctica. A businessman had detected a heat bloom with one of his satellites. Long story short it was a slaughterhouse. A lot of people died," Lex said quietly. She hadn't meant to get mired down in memories, but here she was mourning the dead, people she'd barely known but had become close with in a short and frightening period of time.

"Lemme guess," he said, lurching forward to prop his elbows on his knees and his chin on his knuckles, "he had something to do with it."

Lex followed his laser gaze to where it rested on the Predator, who was still squatting in his little corner now fully immersed with his alien toys. She recognized the pig robot thingy that had used to be her expensive television and now realized with a sigh that he was giving it some kind of propulsion system. As if it wasn't ugly and annoying enough, already he used it more to terrorize her than for whatever he'd originally built it for. What looked like tiny rockets were now attached to its sides, and Scar was hooking some sort of clear cable to it that led to his wrist computer. Blue bursts of power ran from the computer, through the cable, to the RoboPig.

"So then you know, then, that he's dangerous," Harrigan continued softly, "That he and I got a history too. Maybe not with him specific like, but a score to settle all the same."

She'd been expecting an answer like that. With Harrigan's history she hadn't thought that he would just accept Scar's presence, but she hadn't thought he'd want to challenge him either. This was going to have to be handled fast if they were going to play ball together. If Harrigan challenged her Predator there would be blood. Scar may not be like his people, but he still wouldn't take a challenge lying down. Scar was a born killer and the old man would not stand a chance against him. If she didn't stop this line of thinking now, this wouldn't work out.

Lex looked at him. "He's kept me and the girl alive for months, when he didn't have to. No strings attached. I don't know why he did it, but he has. You try to hurt him and I'll end you."

Harrigan threw back his head and laughed. His eyes crinkled up at the edges and a few tears of laughed ran down his leathery cheeks. "Never thought I'd see the day."

Lex blinked, than couldn't resist quipping, "What, Tuesday? Tuesday's have been around for a while, unfortunately."

His smile was gone in a flash. "He and his kind get off on skull fucking humans like cattle. Who do you think you are? Way I see it, you're letting him kill people just to save your own skin."

Lex felt a spark of indignant anger, and just like that it was gone in a flash. She had no illusions about Scar. She knew he killed humans. There'd be times where he'd disappear from camp only to return a while later a freshly shined skull in his carrying bag, and it wouldn't be an elongated Changed skull either. She'd always told herself that he'd been challenged, been shot at, but now it wasn't so clear. She was no better, she realized, a cold sweat hitting her spine like needles, than the creatures that slaughtered and ate her kind. She was just as bad as Scar was and the thought made her sick to her stomach. Lex slumped in the dirt next to Harrigan and they both watched Izumi chuck rocks at the RoboPig which was skittering around the floor and lasering them out of the air before they hit the ground. Occasionally it would miss, and when it did Scar would grumble to himself and poke at his computer. He was probably refining the stupid thing, and Lex wasn't exactly sure what he had in mind for the creepy looking mutant killer pig television.

"Tell me about the one you encountered," she said finally.

Harrigan drew up a leg and rested his folded hands around his knee. "It was a hot summer, hottest on record. The gang wars were going strong, and the streets ran with blood. One of them showed up and started hunting people. We'd find bodies, skinned and deboned, hanging up like damn deer. It was draining them like it was nothing, like we meant nothing."

Harrigan paused and swallowed, sharp eyes still trained on Scar. Lex new better than to interrupt. His face was hard and his jaw was clenched. He was in a dark place right now, they were both bogged down in memories concerning the horrors that Scar's race had subjected them to. She was silent, though she wanted more than anything to pull out a quip that would bring her out of the nightmarish fog of memories she could not seem to escape. This was hard enough for him as it was, it wouldn't do for her to make a wiseass comment now and muck it all up.

"I found it. Found its ship. We fought, I won. They gave me a damn gun, like it was supposed to mean something. Then they left."

There was a long silence following this simple rendition of what most have been a horrifying experience. The uneasy quiet was punctured only by Izumi's giggling and the miniature robo terror's laser blasts. They both watched Scar jab at his computer, mandibles clicking together in an irritated fashion.

"He's..a little different," Lex said at last, "I almost wonder if there is something wrong with him."

Harrigan snorted. "What like he's gay?"

Scar, proving that he'd been eavesdropping on their conversation the entire time, promptly snatched up the robot he'd been messing with and lobbed it at Lex's head as hard as he could.

She dodged, laughing, and it bounced off the wall with a mechanical squeal. That shattered the tense acidic air of the room and for the first time she felt like maybe, just maybe, it'd all turn out okay.

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_To be continued..._


	14. In Which Trust Falls Happen

**Author's Note:** _Okay so I changed one of the categories to humor and the story is M now, mainly because I can't help swearing, but also mayhaps for other stuff in the future ;p_

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**In Which Trust Falls and Group Bonding Happen**

_IX_

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Harrigan had insisted on Scar taking lead in return for taking them to his camp, while he occasionally called out directions behind them. Lex figured he only walked behind them because he felt that it would give him some sort of advantage, but they both knew it was all smoke and mirrors. All of them knew that Scar would be the uncontested victor if he and Harrigan were going to go at it. Still, he was a wily old bastard, Lex wouldn't put it past him to have a killer card hidden up his sleeve that he could pull out at the last minute.

_'The only question_,' Lex thought, '_Is what is he playing at_?_ Are we friends now? It can't be that easy_.'

There was no way he was just going to take them in, just like that. What did he hope to accomplish?

Apparently Scar shared the same thought, as the Predator wouldn't have allowed himself to be directed by a human were that not the case. He was sauntering ahead of them and she could hear mechanical _whirrs_ coming from his helmet. She knew it was powered on and tracking Harrigan's every move and if he made a false step he'd be a smoking only promising thing was that they were headed in a specific westerly direction. He wasn't just randomly leading them places, so maybe he was telling the truth that they were being taken to the camp.

Or maybe he was leading them to the biggest hole in the ground so he could dump their bodies without having to work too hard. Who knew.

Time to do some prodding then. Lex casually rolled up next to Harrigan, intent on building a better relationship. After all, they had got off on the wrong foot. It wasn't at all clear if they could ever get back on the right foot but she had to try. If he liked her maybe he wouldn't screw her over later.

She opened her mouth.

"Don't even try girlie," he muttered, "I'm still mad at you."

"Mad? I didn't do anything!" Lex said indignantly, forgetting completely that she was intending to be playing him.

Harrigan snorted. "I said you could follow me, and I ain't gonna screw you over. So quit trying to get in my head."

"Fine," Lex muttered, rather miffed that she'd been found out so quickly.

Izumi mimed throwing rocks at the back of old man Harrigan's bald head. Lex grinned. At least Izumi was on her side. Apparently the little girl had found someone who annoyed her more than Lex. That was fine with her. Harrigan needed watching, he was not to be trusted. No one in the wasteland was.

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Scar halted, and Lex immediately stopped too and dropped into a fighter's crouch. She'd been watching the Predator's movements for months now, and they were almost perfectly in tune with each other. When he moved she countered to best back him up and take care of Izumi. The little girl in question immediately moved to be behind the Predator's bulk where she would be best protected by the two hunters. Harrigan was left on the outside of the group. He was a warrior and had been through his own fair amount of scraps, but he was at odds with the group dynamic and he knew it. He hovered awkwardly between Lex and Izumi, not entirely sure who to flank.

Lex was quiet, watching her Predator. It could be nothing, and he often pretended he saw or sensed something in order to lull her into a false sense of security so that he could prank her, but then again it could indeed be Changed waiting to pounce and have a bit of human souffle. It was better safe than sorry.

She heard something skitter in a dark back alley and her heart dropped. Scar's pranks were annoying and sometimes painful, but at least she wouldn't be dead. Tussles with the Changed lowered her life expectancy significantly.

"We need to keep moving," Harrigan hissed.

"Shh," Lex told him, still searching the buildings walling the streets for movement.

"We stand still and they get a chance to move in on us," he whispered furiously.

"We run and they hunt us down," Lex snarled back, "This isn't exactly a crack team of soldiers that can deal with that sort of environment. We run and we're dead."

Scar dropped one meaty fist gently on top of Lex's head. His helmet whirred. "_Shut up._"

Lex stuck her tongue out at Harrigan for getting her in trouble with Scar, but brought her Sig up. The laser sight helped track the dark windows and she and Scar slowly spun in place, casing the street that was slowly darkening with the setting sun. Lex watched the thin golden beams slowly slide behind the dark layers of houses, finally melting like a pat of bright molten butter until there was nothing left.

"Shit," Lex muttered.

Scar grasped her shoulder, giving her a little shove down the street. The message was clear, they'd keep moving. Izumi pushed a cold little hand into Lex's free one, and Lex gave her hand a little squeeze, sending out a mock bravado that she did not have. Scar hovered behind them like a mother goose. If the situation hadn't been so serious, Lex would have laughed at the fact that Harrigan was on the outside of the group again. Scar was very obviously not protecting him. Hah! Take that little man.

Howls suddenly echoed through the buildings, building into a frightening crescendo that seemed to surround them on all sides.

Scar bent to Izumi and his helmet whirred and a frightened Japanese man was shouting something from its tinny little speakers. Lex had absolutely no idea what it said, but Izumi's face was dead white and she nodded. Scar turned to Lex.

"_Arm...her_."

Lex shivered, a cold chill running up her spine. She reached into her armor and plucked out a curved hunting knife. Izumi almost dropped it when her thin arms took its full weight. To Lex it was a knife but to the little girl it was very nearly a sword. Lex brushed a bit of shiny black hair that had come free from her banana barrettes from her forehead. Izumi turned wide dark eyes on her as she clutched the knife with white knuckled hads.

"It'll be okay kiddo," Lex murmured.

Izumi nodded. Scar bent and bumped his mask against Lex's forehead, and she rapped a fist against his metal faceplate. Scar picked on her a lot, but every now and then, in situations where it wasn't quite sure whether or not they'd make it out alive, he was nice to her. Lex grinned. He really wasn't as big and as bad as he made himself out to be. She suspected that deep down inside he was a teddy bear. A huge, ugly murderous teddy bear, but soft and squashy all the same.

"I knew you appreciated me," she said, laughing a little, "Don't think I won't forget this."

Scar tweaked her nose painfully. Or maybe not a teddy bear. Maybe a pin cushion.

Harrigan yelled a warning and brought a shotgun up to bear on a huge shape flying right at them. Lex got a glimpse of a horrendously mutated spidery white body and teeth before Scar's laser canon turned it into a curtain of meat that rained down around them. There were more shapes following the first one. Changed streamed from the walls and windows, howling at the fresh scent of blood.

Lex snapped her Sig up, tracking the closest body. Her first shot blew a spray off of the shoulder, her second hit the forehead and snapped the creatures head back. Two down, about a hundred left to go. Lex spared a glance at Scar. The Predator was like a whirling dervish. His shoulder canon seemed to be on auto pilot, computer tracking and blasting while he concentrated on the ones closest to him with his wrist blades and spear. The kill zone around him was huge, Changed falling in chunks before they got within three feet of him.

Izumi's screaming distracted Lex a moment from watching her Predator kill, and she cursed herself for not paying attention. Two of the creatures had got Izumi off by herself, and she was barely holding them at bay with the aide of her knife and the levitating robo pig. Lex threw a glance at Scar. He was still roaring and plunging into the biggest packs of Changed, body parts flying every which way. Harrigan grasped her shoulder.

"Get your kid," he shouted, "I'll keep them off of your back!"

Lex didn't hesitate but broke their little circle, running straight for Izumi.

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_To be continued._


	15. In which Lex almost dies

**Author's Note:** _ Okay so I changed one of the categories to _

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**In Which Lex Almost Dies**

_X_

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Lex flew straight at the huge pale group of Changed that were terrorizing with her kid. They grouped around the little girl a lot like large ugly cats toying with a mouse. Except Izumi wasn't a mouse at all, and the cats were in fact misshapen monsters intent on eating her. Izumi clutched her knife up close to her chest, slashing at any clawed hands that got too close. Izumi was quick and nimble, and Lex was fairly certain that her diminutive size and speed was the only thing that had kept her alive up until this moment. The Changed wouldn't be amused for long, and when that happened it would be all over. The little girl would be first on the dinner list for the creepy fugly monsters.

Lex snarled as she ran; like hell that would ever happen, not on her watch.

Lex went barreling straight through the crowd of monsters, knocking white spidery bodies aside with the force of her charge and leaping right over Izumi's head. All the while she was yelling and screeching like a hellcat, and certainly making enough noise for one. She swung the Predator spear in a wide sweeping angle, not really aiming at any of the Changed in particular. She wanted to scatter them away from Izumi first and foremost, so they could work their way back to the relative safety of Scar and Harrigan. She would be no use to the little girl in that cluster, they'd only be killed.

The Changed gnashed their teeth, circling her and snarling like a pack of dogs. They stayed out of range of her spear, and Lex grinned with a bravado she didn't really feel. There were too many of them. Izumi squashed herself up against Lex's back, and Lex backed them up against a wall. They couldn't be circled now, but Lex didn't know how long she could hold them off; there were more here than she'd ever fought before and her fighting skills were minimal at best.

There was a good reason she let Scar do the brunt of the fighting. She was learning, yes, and getting more and more deadly with every battle she fought, but she didn't have the years of training and experience that the Predator did. Most of the huge skirmishes they had been in to date she'd survived by pure luck. Pure luck, and Scar.

Lex's face paled slightly as she saw just how far they were from Harrigan and Scar.

They were screwed. There was no way that she could see that they could both get out of this. She swallowed, mouth dry. She swatted at one of the Changed who had gotten too close with the spear, while trying to think about what to do. There was no way both she and Izumi could get away. One of them would have to be bait, and Lex knew exactly who it had to be. She glanced down at Izumi and pulled the Sig SAUR from her belt. The little girl took the heavy gun with both hands, and Lex's heart sunk at the sight of the tears in her dark eyes.

"It'll be okay, kiddo. I'm going to take as many with me as I can," Lex whispered, smoothing Izumi's hair, "Make a run for Scar, if you can. If not-"

Lex didn't say it, but the unspoken words hung in the air like lead weights. They both knew what she left unsaid. It was better to die quick by a bullet, than to die slow being eaten alive by the Changed who liked to keep their victims conscious right up until the bitter end.

Lex sheathed her spear, and raised her shotgun, taking careful aim at the grotesquely misshapen heads surrounding them. She let out a slow breath and fired.

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She could hear Harrigan shouting and through the spray of blood she could make out him shouting into what looked like a shortwave radio. Huh, she wondered who he was talking to. Scar was completely obscured by the bodies of his foes, nothing more than a writhing mass of blood and teeth and angry snarls. The Changed flooded to him, trying to take down the most dangerous of the group. They seemed to know that if they took out the most obvious obstacle than the rest of the group would soon fall after. They weren't wrong.

Lex fired her last shot, and the monster closest to her blew apart with a meaty _whumph_. She got a glimpse of Scar rising above the screeching pack of Changed, mask pitted and stained with blood. His dreads flared out around him as he hooked Changed on the end of his wristblades, flinging them away from him. His shoulder cannon was rotating wildly, firing off shot after shot. Lex grinned. He was rather awesome in his own frightening and dangerous way. There was no help for it; she was going to miss him.

"Goodbye Scar," Lex muttered, gun clicking emptily, the last red shell dropping to the concrete in an empty rattle, "It's been a wild ride."

Her brown eyes steeled and with a flick of her wrist the combi stick extended with a soft hiss. Lex charged the group surrounding them. She dodged spidery limps, ducking and slashing and doing the most damage she could so that Izumi could escape. For every one she barely took down there were two more to take its place.

Her lungs burned and her eyes stung with goopy blood.

The Changed did not attempt to play with her, but instead concentrated on killing her. She was the threat that stood between them and a square meal, and they were always hungry, always.

It wasn't long at all before the tide turned.

Lex let out a shriek when a hand snagged her hair and yanked her flat on her back. She desperately tried to roll over, to get up and keep fighting, but more distorted pale clawed hands were holding her down. Izumi had been quiet the entire time her surrogate mom was slaughtering the monsters surrounding them, but now Lex could hear her screaming and crying.

'_It's alright_,' Lex wanted to say, '_Make use of the time I gave you, RUN!'_

But the words wouldn't leave her mouth. Her mouth formed them uselessly, and there were so many bodies above her that she could no longer see the sky. She got a glimpse of long dirty bloodstained fang inching past her face, and then her shoulder erupted in pure agony and she could smell the fresh coppery tang of blood. Her blood. They were eating her.

Lex screamed.

It was a raw, bloodcurdling shriek that she hadn't known she'd been capable of making. Those teeth tore into her mercilessly, and she'd never known pain like it. She kept screaming, crying, she couldn't help it. It hurt like nothing she'd ever felt before.

_'Oh god, let it be over, let it-'_

Her brain fuzzily made out the sound of gunfire over the internal hot red roar of torment assaulting her. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she registered that it was fully automatic gunfire and that none of their party possessed any weapons anything remotely like it. There were people, a lot of people from the sound of it. Lex prayed desperately with the last vestiges of her strength that they were good men and women. Hopefully whoever it was would rescue Izumi, and Scar would have the sense to hide and not get himself killed.

She prayed her makeshift family would be okay, because she was beyond saving.

Abruptly she realized she could see the sky.

Her brain had soared above her ruined body, and her mind had shut itself off to the pain. The agony was still there, yes, but muted. She could no longer pay attention to it. The night sky was beautiful. The round full moon hung in the sky, a shining glimmering orb that cast its pale light onto Lex's blood stained face. The light was soft and gentle, and it put her at ease to think that something so beautiful would be the last thing she ever saw.

_'Hunter's Moon.'_

Her eyes fixed on it, calm and quiet.

Scar's ferocious visage suddenly blocked the light, and she struggled to focus on him. His golden green eyes were narrowed at her, and his ugly crab like face was spattered with blood. The Predator's mandibles were tightly curled together, and he looked almost…frightened. She wanted to laugh at the thought, but it hurt too bad. That was absurd, because Scar wasn't scared of anything. His mandibles clacked together and his thick brow furrowed, giving him a mother hen-ish look. Lex did laugh then, and then painfully choked and gasped, spitting up blood.

"Why are you so worried, crab face?" she whispered, one blood stained hand coming up to weakly bat at his mottled cheek.

Scar's head whipped around and bit the intruding hand, giving it a little shake. Hah, it was just like him to bite her. Even when she was dying he wouldn't cut her a break. Scar snarled at her, pulling her hair and poking at her. His dreads were everywhere and she wanted to complain. He was blocking the pretty moon.

Lex's hand dropped free and it dropped to the bloodstained concrete. It was nice that he was trying to play at a moment like this, like if he thought that he'd mess with her it would all go back to being okay and like none of this had ever happened.

"Knew you wanted a piece of this," she murmured, "But they got to me first."

Scar jerked her face up to his and roared, and she was surprised that such a carnivore didn't have smelly breath. It was warm, and actually smelled…pleasant. Oh god, the pain was making her stupid. That was it, there was no other reason why she wasn't freaking out right now over enjoying weird things. That, and she just didn't have the energy to freak out.

"Heh, do you brush your fangs when I'm not looking, Sir Peppermint?" she asked.

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The sharp click of heavy boots all around them interrupted them, and suddenly the muzzles of several assault rifles were all pointed at the back of Scar's head. Lex tried to warn them to leave him alone, that he wouldn't hurt anybody (she thought), but her body had given up the ability to form words. She choked again, downing on her own blood.

Harrigan was yelling something at the heavily armored people surrounding them, and she saw the old man thrust himself between the guns and Scar's back.

'_That was nice of him_,' Lex thought, '_I guess that means we're cool now. Hah! I win!_'

Scar hadn't paid the weapons pointed right at him any attention at all. Maybe he really was crazy, and that would explain why he'd been content to travel with a human woman and a little girl. Izumi was dragging over Lex's huge pack over to them, and began digging out the medical supplies. She yanked out yards and yards of gauze and pressed them to the gaping and bloody holes the Changed had chewed in her adoptive mom. Scar made a quiet clicking noise, and carefully pushed Izumi's little hands away with one of his huge ones.

'_Be nice to her_,' Lex thought at him, '_She's only trying to help. Not that it'll work anyway, but still it's the thought that counts_.'

She felt like she was coming to pieces at the seams. She was fading fast. She could no longer feel her extremities; Lex was adrift in a peaceful sea, and she could barely make out Scar's face. The Predator had stopped looking at her and was instead messing with his own version of a medkit. He hardly used it and she wished she had the energy to peek inside. He was messing around with something that was glowing bright blue, and her fuzzy brain couldn't make out what it was.

The people surrounding them, Harrigan included, were quiet while Scar worked.

'_Why are you even trying_?' she wanted to scream, '_You should be running! They haven't shot at you now, but they will_!'

Her voice was frustrating her; it wouldn't do what she wanted. She wanted to yell at him, but all she could do was make pathetic rasping noises.

Scar tipped what looked like a liquefied fairy forest over her body.

Lex had thought that she was beyond pain, but how wrong she was. Whatever the glowing blue gunk was, it burned like nothing she'd ever felt before. A scream tore from her throat, a primal agonized shriek that shattered the stillness of the night. Several of the riot gear clad people surrounding them jumped, and Izumi's small hand clenched in Lex's own.

Lex's body jackknifed off of the ground, and her wounds started smoking.

Finally the agony began to fade and her vision cleared enough to make out Scar hoovering above herand clearly trying to look like he wasn't hoovering. His huge clawed hands were gently gripping her head, holding it fast so that she wouldn't bash her brains out on the concrete while she was thrashing around. His dreads had swung down to frame her face, and Lex was suddenly struck with the weirdest urge to give them a good yank.

She couldn't make her arm move, though, so she didn't. She hurt all over, but she also felt a little bit better. Her vision was fading, but she knew she was going to sleep now, instead of fading into the void. Scar was leaning close, peering at her face and making his weird little trilling noise. She smiled.

"Yer face looks funny," she muttered, and promptly passed right out.

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_To be continued..._


	16. In which Lex meets people

**Author's Note:** _Whew this has sat on my computer long enough. I decided to change the format of the chapter title. I doubt anyone will notice, but I'm getting tired of Roman numerals, and I keep forgetting which one I was on so I get them wrong. Eh. No more fancy for me._

_Please read and review, I love hearing from you! _

**Disclaimer:** _I own nothing._

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**Chapter 16**: In which Lex meets people

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Lex felt nauseous. She knew she wasn't dead, because there was no way heaven would feel this bad, or that hell would smell like chocolate fudge. The points on her shoulders, arms, and stomach where the Changed had chewed on her like dogs with a new rubber toy felt like white hot agony. If she wasn't in so much pain she would have throttled someone just because she was so miserable.

Death sucked, and hell was apparently an olive green tent that smelled like her Gram's best Death by Decadent Fudge.

She struggled to open her eyes which were gummed closed. Lex's eyes cracked open, struggling to find her vision in the dull light. She focused blearily on a pair of familiar green gold shark eyes a few inches from her own. Lex blinked. When she wrestled her heavy lids back open the eyes were gone, but the curtain door was moving slightly as though someone had dashed through. Lex snorted. For an intergalactic hunter who was supposedly the best of the best when it came to hiding from a girl Scar was anything but subtle.

Lex heaved herself up and nearly barfed. Sitting up was definitely a bad idea. She gritted her teeth and did it anyway, bullying her way past the vertigo that swamped her. The Changed may have beat the crap out of her, but she'd be damned if they ruined the rest of her day.

"Easy there."

Lex's eyes snapped in the direction of the voice. While she was lying in a bed surrounded by medical equipment and the voice sounded like it belonged to someone's nice polite southern Virginia farmer grandfather, it didn't hurt to be careful. Paranoia had saved her bacon more than once. An old man in a shabby Rat Fink t-shirt and a white doctor's coat shuffled out from a back room. His thin white hair was buzzed down to a military stubble on his balding noggin, and the hand that reached out to check her IV was wrinkled and thin with skin so pale it was almost translucent. Great, a geezer doctor.

"Almost thought we'd lost you," he said, checking her stitches and making notes on a clipboard.

"Thought I'd lost me too," Lex mumbled.

"My name is Doctor Robinson, and I'm the trauma surgeon here at the camp," he said, offering her his frail little hand to shake.

Lex shook it and discovered that it wasn't frail at all. His handshake was firm and there were calluses on his palms and fingers, got from years and years of hard labor. Clearly not a doctor most of the time. Doctors didn't get calluses.

"Where am I?" Lex asked, trying to heave herself up again and failing. Moving hurt.

Doctor Robinson shoved his thin wire rim glasses up his nose and chuckled. "You were brought in almost a week ago from the Waste. I'm afraid it's not my place to brief you Ma'am, but all I can say is that you're in a safe place."

Lex hesitated, not exactly sure if she should mention Scar. She'd thought he'd been hiding from her (hah!) because of his fretting over her when she was dying, but maybe he was hiding from the Doc. It was entirely plausible. This camp place could have no knowledge that a Predator was in their midst. She had no idea what was going on, she'd been out for so long. Lex decided it was best to test the waters and go from there.

"What… about the people I came here with?" she asked finally.

Doc Robinson chuckled. "You mean the little girl and your clingy and cranky alien?"

So he did know about Scar. Cranky described him just fine, though clingy she wasn't so sure about. "Yep, that sounds about right."

"I believe Izumi is in the mess hall being fed, and your boy is around here somewhere. He tends to lurk a lot. I expect he would pop up if I attempted to poison you or something," Doc Robinson said wryly.

Lex snorted. Scar pop up and rescue her? She had a hard time wrapping her head around the concept even though the Predator did it on a regular basis.

"Sure buddy, I got a regular knight in shining armor."

Doc Robinson peered at her over the tops of his glasses. "He doesn't strike me as the sort of fellow that responds well to 'thank you's', but you should be grateful. He saved your life, Ma'am. When they brought you to me you were beyond my medical expertise. It was that glowing blue stuff that he put on you that kept you alive. All I did was put you back together."

"What did he put on me?" Lex asked, "It looked like he put Tinkerbelle through a juicer and pasted her on like finger paint."

He laughed. "It did, didn't it? I have no idea what it is. I've been trying to analyze it ever since it was safe to scrape it off you, but I just don't have the equipment to run a diagnostic. I would need a class 4 Biomedical lab with all the trimmings just to run preliminary tests."

Lex shook her head, trying to wrap her brain around it and failing.

"Anyway," Doc Robinson said, "The head cheese wants to see you now that you're awake."

"See me? Why?"

His white caterpillar like eyebrows threatened to disappear into his hairline. "You came in out of the Waste with one of our head guys, when we haven't seen other people in ages. And you have one of those alien hunter things following you around like a freaking _puppy_. What do you think?"

"He's not a puppy," Lex muttered, "He throws things at me. And he's cranky."

"Whatever. He wears things' insides as jewelry, and he also protects you. The bosses will be in to interview you when they're done with a meeting," Doc Robinson said, setting her chart down on a table, "In the mean time, your fanged puppy and the girl want to see you. And I made fudge."

So that was where the yummy smell was coming from.

Doc Robinson set a tin of the best looking chocolate fudge Lex had ever seen next to her bed. Her mouth watered, and only her fear of being impolite kept her from putting her face in the tin and eating it like a dog. She was starving, come to think of it. She couldn't even remember the last time she had had a square meal.

Izumi shuffled in through the flap that served as a doorway clutching a paper bag. Her black eyes were huge in her small face but her expression had lost some of the starved and haggered look, and she had filled out some. Lex was happy to see that they had been feeding her well. Izumi crawled up onto the foot of Lex's bed, crossing her legs and avoiding looking at her. Lex opened her mouth, not really knowing what to say. What could she say? Sorry, that she'd nearly died and left the little girl alone?

Fortunately Scar saved her from answering. Scar entered the tent and although the room was fairly big, the hulking Predator seemed to take up all of it with his bulk. Two soldiers in cameo and body armor followed him in, holding M249's. The barrels of their guns were currently pointing at the ground, but the soldiers were guarding the entrance and Lex had a feeling they had been tasked with following her Predator around, probably with orders to shoot him if he stepped a clawed toe out of line.

Heh, good luck with that. Whatever made them feel safer.

Scar leaned over her and she heard his helmet whir, and the telltale red laser shot out and scanned her body. The Predator methodically checked her bandages, clicking to himself. Lex wanted to laugh. She wondered whether he was checking to see if the human doctor met his med standards. Scar straightened, obviously having arrived at whatever conclusion he was looking for. The Predator tugged the sack from Izumi's hands, withdrawing a loop of whitened sharp teeth on a wire cord.

Scar dropped the sack on the bed and spanned the loop with his big hands. Lex peered at it. The Predator had pulled out a bunch of sharp finger sized Changed teeth, cleaned and whitened them, and strung them on what looked like a guitar cord. He shoved it at her.

"For me?" Lex asked.

He let loose a snorting growl that probably meant something along the lines of, "Duh, moron."

Lex took it carefully and strung it around her neck where it made four heavy loops from her sternum to her clavicle. She touched it, the thought finally sinking in that Scar had actually given her something other than a painful bonk with whatever was nearest her at the time.

"Thanks," she whispered.

Izumi reached into the sack and pulled out a plastic Tupperware container of tomato soup. She thrust it at Lex, along with a spoon, saying something in Japanese too fast for Lex to puzzle out.

Scar translated for her, _"Chocolate...paste will...make you...fat."_

Lex blinked. Chocolate paste? Fudge must not be in the Predator dictionary. Jerk. And she would _not_ get fat. If anything she needed to gain weight after all of the surviving that they had been doing. She dug into her soup, trying to work hard to keep from eating it too fast. She was absolutely starving. After surviving in the Waste for months on skinny critters that wouldn't feed a dog, this stuff tasted like tomato heaven.

Scar's head snapped to the tent door and he grumbled to himself. Lex watched her Predator. Scar had stiffened but his shoulder canon remained inactive. Whoever or what ever was outside the tent annoyed him, but wasn't actively a threat. Judging from the way the soldiers guarding the door snapped to attention it was the head honcho of the camp. Lex kept eating her soup. Whatever happened, she was not going to let it ruin her appetite. The soup was too tasty.

Harrigan and another familiar face she knew all too well shouldered their way into the tent and approached her bed.

"Dutch," Lex muttered, finding it weird that she was running into most of the people contained in the military file she'd looked at so long ago.

Harrigan snorted. "What, you know him too? Rather odd that you know all the players, girly."

Lex took a firmer grip on her soup. Scar stood next to her, silent and impassive, and she didn't want to risk looking at him but she knew he would be ready to move if things went south. Dutch, Harrigan, and a few others gathered around her hospital bed. Lex figured that in this weird little society they must be the pillars of the community. She wondered what would happen next and contented herself with loud slurps of soup to fill the silence as she studied them.

Dutch looked almost exactly like the picture in the file which had been taken in the eighties. There were a few signs of aging: a smattering of grey in his light brown hair and laugh lines at the corners of his eyes and mouth. That was where the signs ended however. His biceps were huge, stretching the rolled up sleeves of his tan cameo jacket. Lex could easily see this man taking on an enraged Predator deep in a South American jungle and have enough energy to arm wrestle a bear afterword.

"So what happens now?" she asked, unable to stand the suspense.

"You join us," Dutch said, "Or we shoot you."

Izumi made an angry noise and Lex's eyes narrowed. Scar was still immobile but could go from zero to sixty with no problem.

"Why?" Lex said flatly.

Dutch leaned his hands on the edge of the bed and leveled his gaze at Lex. "Because we're dying off as a species. Other than the people we've saved that reside inside our gates, we haven't seen another person in weeks. Other than you. We've seen the monsters and we've seen his kind, the Hunters."

Lex said nothing, merely ate her soup and watched him talk. If it came to it she and Scar would kill their way out and find a new place to exist.

"His kind hunt people," Dutch said calmly, "But for some reason he follows you around. So here it is: we can't afford to have him out running around where he could hurt us. Either you stay here and he lives, or you leave and we shoot him."

Scar made an angry _wuffing_ noise and while his shoulder canon stayed inactive, the tri laser dots settled on Dutch's forehead. The message was plain: _I'd like to see you try it, asshole_.

Dutch stared the Predator down with no fear. "Yes, you'd kill me and everyone in this room valiantly, but there are more of us outside. You'd die and the woman would die with you."

Scar snarled at him, but made no move. There was a little bedside table next to Lex and on it was her medical charts and a old Pepsi can filled with flowers, probably from Izumi. Lex could not for the life of her imagine Scar ever picking anyone flowers. The Predator struck out with his arm, sweeping the clipboard and the flowers to the floor with a crash. The only people in the room who did not jump at the sound were Harrigan and Dutch. Scar crouched, propping his elbow up on the table, clawed hand flared and waited.

Lex let out a deep breath she didn't know that she'd been holding.

Dutch had challenged Scar's honor by telling him what to do and threatening to shoot him. By Scar's Hunter code his manhood had been challenged and he had to do something about it. Usually that meant ripping the individual who had done the offending into little bitty pieces. Lex knew that if any other Predators saw it, they'd probably think it was ridiculous, but this was Scar's solution. Scar was challenging him to a freaking arm wrestling match. He didn't have to rip Dutch's skull out and Scar's manliness was uncontested.

Lex's gaze snapped to Dutch, wondering if he would take the olive branch. If he didn't, there would probably be blood. Lot's of blood. When no one moved Lex pushed at Izumi, wanting the little girl under the protection of the steel bed frame. Dutch finally grinned and strode over to the table, propping up his own elbow and grasping Scar's meaty paw.

They both strained, muscles bulging. Lex rolled her eyes. She was glad that they were solving the issue and that no one would die horribly, but there was more testosterone in the room than was necessary. After a few seconds Scar slammed Dutch's hand down on the table, leaving a dent in the shape of Dutch's fist.

"Ouch," Dutch muttered, shaking out his hand.

Scar snarled at him and marched out of the tent, dreads swinging. The soldiers made to follow him out but Dutch waved them back.

"It's okay," he called, "We're cool now."

"What the hell was that?" a heavily accented woman's voice shouted.

Dutch winced as a woman came barreling through the tent flaps, still yelling. She was quite pretty with cinnamon colored skin and raven black hair. Her wide cheekbones and full mouth would look quite pleasant, if her mouth wasn't currently barred in a snarl. She jabbed her finger in Dutch's chest.

"What was that?" she repeated angrily, "He could have broken your hand!"

"But he didn't Anna," Dutch said placatingly, "Everyone wins."

"Clearly not everyone," she snapped, "_Hombre estupido_."

"You wound me, dear," he said escorting her out of the med tent, then he looked back and called over his shoulder, "Get well soon."

Lex blinked. "That's the general plan."

.

.

_To be continued..._


End file.
